Holts Summit man faces new sex crime charges

A Holts Summit man already accused of rape, kidnapping and attempted kidnapping in two incidents is now charged with sodomy and kidnapping in a third.

Boone County prosecutors charged Anthony Todd Rowell, 49, last week with first-degree sodomy and first-degree kidnapping in connection with an incident in Ashland in December 2017. Rowell is accused of impersonating a police officer and forcing a woman who had run out of gas on Highway 63 to perform oral sex on him, according to a probable cause statement filed in his newest case.

Investigators matched a fingerprint found on the vehicle to Rowell, the statement said. The woman in June identified Rowell in a lineup, saying she was “70 percent sure” he was responsible for her assault, the documents say. Investigators learned Rowell was a suspect in two other incidents in Columbia and searched his home, finding a baton, law enforcement duty belt and other items associated with law enforcement officers, according to the statement.

Investigators also said Rowell had been a corrections officer, “where he likely had uniforms and equipment similar to those worm by police officers.”

Rowell was charged in January 2018 with second-degree kidnapping in connection with an incident in which a woman said she was walking in central Columbia and a man in a van grabbed her hair and pulled her toward the driver’s side window. He was also charged in March 2018 with allegedly raping a woman who said she had no memory of leaving a bar and woke up in a minivan being yelled at by a white man who used a stun gun on her.

He had been driving for Uber at the time of his initial arrest in January 2018.

Rowell was booked Wednesday on a $500,000 bond on the new charges, online jail records show. He remained in the Boone County Jail on Thursday morning. Arraignment was set for Thursday afternoon.

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