MU rapist gets 20-year sentence
A Boone County judge sentenced a Springfield, Missouri, man to 20 years in prison Thursday for a 2016 rape in a University of Missouri dorm room.
Austin J, Campbell, 21, was charged in January 2016 and convicted in August of raping a woman while he was an MU freshman. Campbell’s defense attorney argued for a five-year sentence, the minimum allowed by law, while prosecutors pushed for a 22-year sentence.
The victim was also a freshman at MU when Campbell entered her unlocked dorm room and raped her.
“I think he did that because he knew she’d been drinking. He hoped she would not wake up. And he thought if she did wake up, no one would believe her,” Boone County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Jessica Caldera told ABC 17 News. “But we were able to convince a jury beyond all reasonable doubt that he did this, that he he was guilty of rape in the first degree.”
Caldera said testimony was presented at the sentencing from Campbell’s high school girlfriend, who said that she had also been sexually assaulted and raped by Campbell when the two were in high school.
She said Campbell felt confident that he could take this to trial because he does not look “like we would imagine a rapist.”
“In the light of day, he [Campbell] appears very respectful. He appears very mature, but that has nothing to do with what he’s willing to do behind closed doors and what he did in this situation, and the fact that he raped his high school girlfriend under the cover of a blanket in her parent’s living room,” Caldera said.
Campbell’s first jury trial last fall ended in a mistrial.
“These are always going to happen behind closed doors, when there are only two people present,” Caldera said. “But this was not a ‘he said-she said’ case. I don’t believe in ‘he said-she said’ because that’s not a term that we would ever use to describe any other kind of crime.”
According to MU’s 2018 Fire and Safety Report, Campbell’s was one of 22 reported rapes at the university in 2016.
Caldera said the university police “did a great job.”
“The victim had a good relationship with her Title IX contact there and I think that was huge. Because I think if she had walked into a brick wall and not felt heard and not felt respected at the Title IX process, which is often the first step for college students, she never would’ve made it to MUPD. She never would’ve made it to my office.”
Here is a list of resources for MU employees or students who have experienced sexual violence, dating or domestic violence, sexual exploitation, or stalking.
