EVANSVILLE – A Henderson, Kentucky, woman is accused of faking a series of sexual assaults and kidnappings in Evansville, in what police believe was a “victim” becoming the “perpetrator.”
In a news release issued Wednesday afternoon, Evansville police identified the woman as 34-year-old Megan N. Cooper. According to court records, a judge issued a warrant for Cooper’s arrest on charges of obstruction of justice, a Level 6 felony, and making false statements, a Class B misdemeanor.
The unusual case can be traced back to at least July 11, when Evansville 911 dispatchers received a report that a woman, later identified as Cooper, had been sexually assaulted and was being held handcuffed in her own vehicle in Wesselman Park, the sprawling nature preserve and recreation area on the city’s east side.
“When officers arrived at the scene, they requested an adult investigations investigator and a sexual assault investigator,” EPD Sergeant Taylor Merriss wrote in a press release. “The scene was examined and Cooper was transported to St. Vincent Hospital to create a sexual assault kit.”
At the time, the EPD still believed that the reported sexual assaults and kidnappings were “real,” Merriss explained. But that was about to change.
A friend of Cooper’s who spoke to a detective on July 11 reportedly told him that he had found Cooper tied to a tree in Wessleman Park just days earlier. But according to the friend, Cooper begged him not to contact police.
On July 12, investigators interviewed Cooper at Holly’s House, a victim support center in Evansville that specializes in conducting “forensic interviews” in cases involving children and victims of sexual assault.
During that interview, Cooper reportedly said she had been the victim of similar incidents, which she described in detail, police said. This included Cooper providing investigators with descriptions of the materials she was bound with during the alleged assaults, as well as descriptions of the drugs she was forced to take during the incidents.
An EPD detective applied for and obtained a search warrant for Cooper’s vehicle and cell phone. What the detective found turned the investigation on its head, Merriss said.
“There were several indications that Cooper’s testimony was dishonest,” Merriss wrote. When investigators also raised the possibility of obtaining the suspected perpetrator’s DNA profile from Cooper’s vehicle, Merriss said Cooper “indicated she did not want the DNA test.”
According to EPD, Cooper was observed on surveillance video at a local store purchasing or stealing the very items allegedly used to bind her. After compiling the video footage, Merriss said, investigators discovered that Cooper was listed as a victim in “numerous” kidnapping and sexual abuse cases in Kentucky and that no suspect was ever identified in any of those cases.
“Cooper’s statements are very similar to those she made regarding the July 11 incident,” Merriss said of the reports from Kentucky.
In late July, detectives confronted Cooper about alleged inconsistencies in her statement. According to EPD, Cooper called a detective herself on July 24 to tell him that she had lied about the Wessleman Woods robbery and kidnapping.
In the EPD news release, Merriss did not specify whether Cooper had explained her motives. Cooper, a Henderson resident, had not been arrested as of early Wednesday afternoon. Merriss asked anyone who knows Cooper’s whereabouts to call 911.
“For much of July, police officers, crime scene investigators, adult investigators, sex crimes investigators, outside agencies and organizations have worked tirelessly on this Cooper-fabricated investigation,” Merriss wrote. “When we investigate crimes, we rely on victim statements, witness testimony and evidence to build a case that provides answers and closure for the victim. We never want to discredit a victim’s statement about any crime.”
Houston Harwood can be contacted at [email protected].
