Prosecutors have called Thomas Stemen’s attack “absolutely chilling,” and a judge described it as “absolutely bizarre and disturbing.” (Anne Arundel County Police Department/AP)
The sentencing came nearly three months after Stemen entered an Alford plea, which allows defendants to plead guilty without admitting they committed a crime.
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Prosecutors have called Stemen’s attack “absolutely chilling,” and a judge described it as “absolutely bizarre and disturbing.” After Stemen’s sentencing, the chief prosecutor for Anne Arundel County described it as “truly horrific.”
“He intentionally went out into our community with the goal of assaulting unsuspecting women,” State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess said in a statement.
Woman was attacked in Maryland with syringe that contained semen, police say
Stemen’s attack started with Peters being “a good citizen.” Shortly before 7 p.m. on Feb. 18, 2020, she’d just finished shopping at Christopher’s Fine Foods and was returning her cart inside the grocery store. Surveillance video shows Stemen followed right behind Peters as she entered through the automatic sliding door and made an immediate right turn to shove her cart into a row of others. As she let go of it, Stemen bumped up against her and jabbed.
Peters jolted backward.
During her TV interview after the attack, Peters said she yelled at the guy about burning her with a cigarette but eventually went to her car and left. As she drove off, the wound started “burning like mad.”
When she got back home, Peters noticed a small red spot and what looked like a puncture wound on her butt and had felt a wet substance on her pants, prosecutors said in their release. She called the Anne Arundel County Police Department, which retrieved surveillance video from the supermarket. The footage showed Peters’s attack but also revealed that Stemen had followed two others — one of them a 17-year-old girl — before pulling out of his pocket what looked like a syringe. He tried but failed to get close enough to stick them.
The next day, Peters noticed the area around the puncture wound had grown into a red area about four inches wide and sought treatment at a nearby hospital. Doctors prescribed her a 30-day cocktail of preventive medication.
For about a week, Peters didn’t know what Stemen had injected her with. “I have no clue what was in that needle. It could be rat poison,” she told WTTG.
Meanwhile, police released the grocery store surveillance video and, with the help of tips from the community, homed in on Stemen as a suspect. Investigators got a search warrant for his home and car. While searching the vehicle, they found a large syringe in the driver’s side door with an unknown “cloudy liquid” inside. They discovered another “cloudy liquid” syringe on the top shelf of his medicine cabinet and nine empty ones scattered around his home in the kitchen and inside bedroom nightstands.
They also found the sweatshirt, pants and shoes Stemen wore during the attack, prosecutors said after the sentencing.
Police sent the syringes to the crime lab for DNA testing. The substance inside came back a match to Stemen’s DNA.
He was arrested a week after the attack. When police asked him what he was doing behind Peters, he told them he was “doing nothing, just standing there.”
In the weeks after the assault, Peters was resolved to make sure Stemen wasn’t going to hurt anyone else. She contacted police when she realized she hadn’t been burned with a cigarette but intentionally injected with some unknown substance. As part of her interview with the TV station, she pushed a shopping cart in the grocery store parking lot while looking straight into the camera.
“You’re not going to do this to me or the young people in my community and get away with it,” she said.
“It’s just not going to happen.”
The sentencing came nearly three months after Stemen entered an Alford plea, which allows defendants to plead guilty without admitting they committed a crime.
ADVERTISING
Prosecutors have called Stemen’s attack “absolutely chilling,” and a judge described it as “absolutely bizarre and disturbing.” After Stemen’s sentencing, the chief prosecutor for Anne Arundel County described it as “truly horrific.”
“He intentionally went out into our community with the goal of assaulting unsuspecting women,” State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess said in a statement.
Woman was attacked in Maryland with syringe that contained semen, police say
Stemen’s attack started with Peters being “a good citizen.” Shortly before 7 p.m. on Feb. 18, 2020, she’d just finished shopping at Christopher’s Fine Foods and was returning her cart inside the grocery store. Surveillance video shows Stemen followed right behind Peters as she entered through the automatic sliding door and made an immediate right turn to shove her cart into a row of others. As she let go of it, Stemen bumped up against her and jabbed.
Peters jolted backward.
During her TV interview after the attack, Peters said she yelled at the guy about burning her with a cigarette but eventually went to her car and left. As she drove off, the wound started “burning like mad.”
When she got back home, Peters noticed a small red spot and what looked like a puncture wound on her butt and had felt a wet substance on her pants, prosecutors said in their release. She called the Anne Arundel County Police Department, which retrieved surveillance video from the supermarket. The footage showed Peters’s attack but also revealed that Stemen had followed two others — one of them a 17-year-old girl — before pulling out of his pocket what looked like a syringe. He tried but failed to get close enough to stick them.
The next day, Peters noticed the area around the puncture wound had grown into a red area about four inches wide and sought treatment at a nearby hospital. Doctors prescribed her a 30-day cocktail of preventive medication.
For about a week, Peters didn’t know what Stemen had injected her with. “I have no clue what was in that needle. It could be rat poison,” she told WTTG.
Meanwhile, police released the grocery store surveillance video and, with the help of tips from the community, homed in on Stemen as a suspect. Investigators got a search warrant for his home and car. While searching the vehicle, they found a large syringe in the driver’s side door with an unknown “cloudy liquid” inside. They discovered another “cloudy liquid” syringe on the top shelf of his medicine cabinet and nine empty ones scattered around his home in the kitchen and inside bedroom nightstands.
They also found the sweatshirt, pants and shoes Stemen wore during the attack, prosecutors said after the sentencing.
Police sent the syringes to the crime lab for DNA testing. The substance inside came back a match to Stemen’s DNA.
He was arrested a week after the attack. When police asked him what he was doing behind Peters, he told them he was “doing nothing, just standing there.”
In the weeks after the assault, Peters was resolved to make sure Stemen wasn’t going to hurt anyone else. She contacted police when she realized she hadn’t been burned with a cigarette but intentionally injected with some unknown substance. As part of her interview with the TV station, she pushed a shopping cart in the grocery store parking lot while looking straight into the camera.
“You’re not going to do this to me or the young people in my community and get away with it,” she said.
“It’s just not going to happen.”
