The Orange County District Attorney's office today filed additional charges against Charles Patrick Drew, the 62-year-old transient, two-striker and registered sex offender accused of committing OC's eighth murder of the year. Joining the previously filed felony count of special circumstances murder in the commission
of rape, sodomy, and oral copulation, Drew now also faces felony counts of rape of an
unconscious person, sodomy of unconscious victim, oral copulation of
unconscious person, assault with a deadly weapon and
assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury, as well as two counts of sexual penetration by foreign object of unconscious victim.
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Drew, who has two prior strike convictions from 1995 for forcible rape and assault
with a deadly weapon, faces a minimum of life in state prison without the possibility of parole with a conviction. That's because, as a
special circumstances case, he is also eligible for the death
penalty.
A 29-year-old woman who is not being identified because she was a victim of a sex crime was staying with Drew at the Motel 6 in Stanton, where he allegedly raped, sodomized and orally
copulated her by force.
She died during the attack.
Drew is accused
of trying to clean up the murder scene, walking outside the rented room
and telling someone to call 9-1-1 because there was an unresponsive
woman inside.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department responded, and
deputies eventually arrested Drew, who is being held without bail pending a
continued arraignment hearing scheduled for Aug. 16 in Santa Ana.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.