WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC-Inside the mind of a convicted rapist

Inside the mind of a convicted rapist

BERTIE COUNTY, NC (WBTV) -  Charlotte Mecklenburg Police call Stanfield Key one of the most dangerous rapists ever convicted in Mecklenburg County.  Detectives in the sexual assault unit say the tracked Key for years, before convicting him and putting him behind bars.  They also say in the case where he raped a south Charlotte mother, he left behind virtually no evidence.

"If he hadn't forgotten the condom," says Sgt. Darrell Price, "he might have gotten away with it." 

Key is now in Bertie Correctional Institution for over 50 years.

We sent Anchor Molly Grantham four-and-a-half hours away to the maximum security prison to talk with Key.  It was something police said could be a great lesson for all women in our community.  They were hopeful it would really drive home the point that sometimes the most dangerous criminals are people who look very normal... just like someone you work with or see at church.

"I think this is the type of guy most people wouldn't suspect," says CMPD Detective Marsha Dearing.  She was the lead investigator on this case.  "He blends in. He's not the monster they portray on TV. He's someone that people who are close to him would not even know that he has this other, secret, life."

Key was convicted for raping a mother of three.  Police say he crept up to her bedroom, then threatened to kill her kids if she didn't go downstairs and let him rape her on her living room couch. 

"She called 911 as soon as he left the house," says Detective Dearing.  "Actually, her kids did."

Stanfield Key's version is very different.  He talked with Grantham from across a long table.

"I'm here because I had an affair on my wife with another married woman," he says.  "We got caught on her sofa by her children and it ended up being easier for her to say ‘rape' then to destroy her marriage."

Through the 60-minute interview, he maintains he never committed a crime.  He says it was consensual.  His version of the events involve a false alibi, being set up by his cellmate from jail and having evidence omitted in trial transcripts.

"Do you know what you say sounds outlandish?" asked Grantham.

"Yes," he replied.  "But it's the truth."

Key says he and the woman - whom we're intentionally not naming and who has since moved from Charlotte - forged a relationship over email.  When asked, he said he didn't have copies of the emails and couldn't' remember the email addresses.

But what police say really happened is a lesson for all of us.  Sgt. Price says Key found his victim in a wildly unsuspecting way... online, in a virtual tour of her house that was up for sale. 

"In the virtual tour, there was a picture of the victim," Price said. "It was a far away shot.  You couldn't see her face well at all.  But it was enough for him to become obsessed over.  He had a picture of her, in the house, online.  Because of the tour, he also then had pictures of each individual room."   

That's how he knew to go upstairs, Price says.  That's how he knew where to find her bedroom.  That's how he knew there was a couch.

"He used this virtual tour as a tool to learn his way through the house."  Price says.  "He has a leather fetish.  He saw the leather couch on the tour, and that is where he raped her."

"That's not true," Key says.  "It got twisted around to make me look like a pretty evil man, but it wasn't me."

"Oh, he's a pathological liar," says Price.  "He'll tell you what you want to hear.  You've seen how good he is at bluffing and convincing.  And people like that know what to say to get the answers they want."

That's one of the things Detective Dearing says is a big lesson she tells women... be careful of giving out little bits of information.  "Men who are sick like this will say things in a way that you don't even know you're releasing information.  Like, ‘Would your husband knows who lives next door?'.  If you reply, ‘I don't know, he's not here right not to ask...' you've just given yourself away."

Price adds the following.

"He's not the exception to the rule. There are tons more people out there just like him on the streets. We've gotten him off the streets, but how many are out there now in Mecklenburg County that we don't know about?"