AN attractive young woman wakes up in her bed with a throbbing hangover. Partially dressed, she can only vaguely remember getting a lift home with the pleasant man she met in a Melbourne nightclub several hours earlier.
She may have been a little tipsy, but certainly not rolling drunk, when she finished clubbing about 4am and stepped into the young man’s pale blue Falcon sedan. Yet her last memory was of sipping an overly sweet cup of hot chocolate the good Samaritan had kindly bought her at a twenty-four-hour convenience store on the way home.
Within fifteen minutes she was woozy, drifting in and out of consciousness, helpless in the hands of a man who had carefully plotted her fate. She was drugged — and later raped in her own bed — by the friendly stranger in what police believe may be an example of a crime that goes largely unreported throughout Australia.
The head of the Victoria Police Rape Squad, Detective Senior Sergeant Chris O’Connor, says police know women are being drugged and assaulted. He frankly admits, ‘We don’t know how big the problem is.’
Police in Melbourne know of cases where girls have been given an unidentified drug that has left them semi-conscious for more than eight hours and with no memory of what happened.
‘We certainly have one offender on our books and there may be more,’ Detective Senior Sergeant O’Connor said.
Detectives have targeted one man, dubbed ‘The Hot Chocolate Rapist’ who has drugged, or tried to drug, at least twenty-two Melbourne women, and probably more, since 1995.
The Hot Chocolate Rapist’s style is consistent. He picks up girls at, or near, nightclubs and offers them a lift home. He stops at a convenience store where he offers to buy his potential victims a coffee, hot chocolate or soft drink. If the girl accepts the drink, within fifteen minutes she feels the effects of being drugged.
According to police the drugging of women for sex could be a major unreported crime as the victims can’t remember details of the assault. Most can’t be sure whether they drank more than they thought or had been slipped a mind-altering drug.
They can’t give police detailed statements of the crime. It is a prosecutor’s nightmare — a star witness with amnesia.
Detective Sergeant Jim Macdonald from the rape squad says victims of the Hot Chocolate Rapist reported struggling for control after having the adulterated drink. ‘Some of the girls reported becoming really groggy and trying to fight off the effects of the drug.
‘Others have woken up in their own beds with no idea how they got there and no recollection of what happened after they had the drink.’
Police know that of twelve women who have accepted lifts with the man in 1997, four have felt drugged but have remained conscious, six have woken up in their own beds, and two have been offered drinks but refused.
Detective Sergeant Macdonald said some of the women reported that when they woke up they felt as if they had been given an anaesthetic or heavy sedative and often fell asleep again for several hours.
‘This man is a very cunning predator who presents well to the women he approaches,’ he said. In three cases he has offered two women a lift and another occasion he has struck twice in the one evening.
While police cannot be sure of the drug the rapist is using, the case is remarkably similar to that of a Qantas steward who drugged and raped colleagues using Rohypnol, a powerful prescription sedative.
In 1996 a former Qantas flight attendant, John Travers Robertson, was sentenced to six years jail after he was found guilty of using Rohypnol to drug female crew members for sex.
One victim said she was given an ‘incredibly sweet’ hot chocolate in Cairns. Police believe Robertson drugged and attacked fourteen crew members using Rohypnol. He was eventually caught and successfully prosecuted only because police found the photographs he took of his naked, unconscious victims.
Melbourne rapist and killer, Daryl Suckling, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of Jodie Larcombe, 21, bragged that he used Royhpnol to drug his victims.
In the United States and United Kingdom the use of drugs to spike drinks at nightclubs and parties has become a big concern to law enforcement and health authorities. In both countries law enforcement bodies can test possible rape victims for traces of Rohypnol.
Rohypnol is ten times more powerful than Valium and is used to treat sleep disorders and heroin addiction. Doctors say it can cause short-term amnesia and decreased inhibitions when used in conjunction with alcohol.
US law enforcement authorities have been particularly critical of the drug, which cannot legally be sold in America.
In the US it has been called the ‘date rape drug’ and has been blamed for hundreds of alleged sexual assaults. In 1996 the US Drug Enforcement Administration described Rohypnol as the nation’s fastest growing drug problem. Cases of abuse have been reported in thirty-two states by mid-1996.
The London Metropolitan Police have set up a group to look at the abuse of Rohypnol in rape cases. UK authorities have described the consequences of the use of Rohypnol as a doping agent as ‘horrific’ with rape victims being unable to testify to details of their crime.
A senior drug enforcement officer, Terrance Woodworth, told a US sub-committee ‘untold numbers of unsuspecting young women’ were having their drinks spiked with Rohypnol and then being sexually abused.
One law enforcement agent went as far to suggest women should accept only unopened drinks in nightclubs.
One of the problems facing police is the difficulty of establishing whether a woman has been drugged with Rohypnol or simply drunk too much, as the effects are similar: staggering, slurred speech, memory loss and hang-overs.
Even forensic tests can be unsatisfactory. Blood tests screening for Rohypnol must be done within thirty-six hours and urine tests within seventy-two hours and experts say the drug must be present in large doses to be identified.
Police say some woman might suspect they were drugged to try to explain why they behaved in an uncharacteristic manner. Others may conclude they just drank too much, unaware they were drugged by a someone planning to manipulate them.
Chemists say the drug has legitimate uses as a sedative and to control the withdrawal symptoms of drug addicts, but that it is waning in popularity because it is such a powerful drug with potential side effects. Police worldwide are concerned it is gaining popularity as an illicit club drug.
Roche say more than a million people in eighty countries are prescribed Rohypnol every year. According to Federal Health department figures the number of prescriptions filled for the drug Flunitrazepan (including Rohypnol) has fallen from 336,062 in 1990 to 223,888 in 1996.
Its effects can include amnesia. It is colourless, odourless and dissolves easily and has been described as ‘the perfect crime in a pill.’
Its effects are magnified when used with alcohol. US authorities have said the drug has been smuggled through Mexico and is now abused by many college students in Florida.
The Drug Enforcement Agency says the drug is popular with Texas high school students and and is considered Floridas’s biggest growing drug problem. US authorities claim some students mix the drug with alcohol to boost the effect.
Known as ‘ropies’, ‘roofies’ and ‘roughies’, a combination of alcohol and Rohypnol can result in blackouts that last up to twenty-four hours. Medical reports in the US say it is used as an alcohol extender to exaggerate the effects of a few drinks to that of a bender.
US authorities say another drug, known by the acronym GHB, is also being used to spike girls’ drinks at clubs. It has been given the nickname of ‘Easy Lay’.
Police fear some people may drop drugs in people’s drinks at nightclubs as a misguided prank — an extension of spiking the punch at the high school social — but police say it can result in death.
Detective Senior Sergeant O’Connor said: ‘It is highly irresponsible. The offender could not know what reaction the drugs would have on the victim.
‘It should be made clear that giving someone drugs without their knowledge in order to have sex is a rape offence with a maximum penalty of twenty-five years.’
The head of the drug squad, Detective Chief Inspector John McKoy, said heroin addicts sometimes used drugs such as Rohypnol when they could not get their drug of choice.
‘We are finding more and more deaths involve people who are found to have several types of drugs in their system including heroin, tranquilisers and alcohol,’ he said.
He said it was available for about $10 a tablet on the street.
Prison officers said that about nine inmates involved in riots at the Victorian private jail, Port Phillip Prison, tested positive to Rohypnol.
The makers of Royphnol, Roche, are well aware of the drug’s dark reputation in date rapes. The company has developed a new formula so the drug dissolves slowly and turns any drink blue. It plans to introduce the improved version in Australia.
Meanwhile, the Hot Chocolate Rapist was unlikely to stop before he was caught, according to a rape squad policeman. ‘He may change his methods slightly but he will keep going as there are women he can dope.’
Number of Cases
Number of Pills
A world-wide problem … figures from the US show a huge jump in the amount of Rohypnol coming into the country.