A Gainesville man connected to a rape earlier this week was arrested Wednesday night.
Gainesville Police arrested John Henry Boyd III, 32, on sexual assault and robbery charges, according a GPD arrest report.
GPD spokesman Ben Tobias, Sgt. John Nabet and the arrest report gave the following account:
At about 7 p.m. Tuesday, Boyd and a 36-year-old woman were drinking beer together in the woods behind the Elk’s Lodge building in the 500 block of Southwest Fourth Avenue.
The two are acquaintances and have been known to drink together.
Boyd gave the woman a pill and told her to swallow it with her drink. After hanging out for a while, Boyd wanted to have sex with the woman. She refused.
Boyd punched the woman in the face, knocking her onto the ground. He then raped her in the woods.
When GPD officers arrived to the scene, they found the woman, who was intoxicated and unable to remember her name or what happened to her.
An ambulance rushed her to Shands at UF while officers canvassed the woods, where they found the woman’s bicycle and bag.
At the hospital later that night, the woman told detectives she was raped by a man she knew only as “J.B.” and identified Boyd through a six-person photograph lineup.
Police received information that the woman and Boyd go to St. Francis House, a homeless shelter on South Main Street, frequently.
A shelter employee told detectives Wednesday that Boyd and the woman were in the building early Tuesday afternoon and knew Boyd’s girlfriend, Tia Morton.
Detectives interviewed Morton, 35, and mentioned Boyd’s alleged rape.
On Wednesday, Morton found Boyd on Bo Diddley Community Plaza and called police. Boyd fled, and police established a perimeter around the plaza.
An officer contacted two women in the French Courtyards Apartment complex, saying that Boyd was hiding in one of their apartments.
Police arrested Boyd and booked him into Alachua County Jail at 8:28 p.m. As of Thursday night, Boyd remained in jail with a $70,000 bond.
Contact Chris Alcantara at calcantara@alligator.org.
