RIDGELAND, S.C.(DDN) – A 46-year-old Georgia man faces three decades in jail after being convicted of raping a woman and “leaving her for dead” on Alligator Alley in a Jasper County nature preserve.
A jury of his peers convicted John Steven Reynovel Metzler on Thursday of first-degree criminal sexual behavior and kidnapping in connection with an attack on March 15, 2023. He was sentenced to 30 years in jail for each offense and ordered to register as a sex offender, according to a 14th Judicial Circuit court report. The sentences are scheduled to run simultaneously.
“This woman was beaten, bruised, and strangled,” said Hunter Swanson of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, which handled the case. “He knew what he was doing when he drove to that part of Jasper County. He understood how desolate it was. He threw her out nude. Without a telephone. Without clothing.
“And, if not for a Good Samaritan finding her at 3:30 a.m., it’s likely that this young woman wouldn’t be here today.”
On the evening of March 14, 2023, the victim met Metzler at Bootleggers, a sports bar in Pooler, Georgia, a community of around 19,000 people.
According to authorities, the two departed the bar, and the woman followed Metzler to a nearby hotel parking lot, where she parked her car and took the front seat of Metzler’s rented U-Hauul van.
The woman stated that she believed they were heading to an after-party at a pool hall in Georgia. Nonetheless, a license plate reader detected the U-Haul vehicle entering South Carolina after 2 a.m., a Hardeeville Police detective testified.
On his way to work, a bystander noticed a woman with only shoes crawling out of the marsh along Alligator Alley in the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. According to authorities, he pulled over and contacted 911 before handing her a pair of jeans and a hoodie.
According to investigators, in a 911 call, the woman stated: “He raped me and tried to kill me.” She said that the experience seemed “like something out of a horror movie.”
The woman was one of 15 witnesses who testified during the three-day jury trial at the Jasper County Courthouse. She told how she feared she would die. The woman claimed that when she was imprisoned in the back of the van, she licked her palms and smeared them on the rear windows. She wanted to leave evidence in case her body was never located.
Crime scene investigators and DNA scientists from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division recounted how hair was extracted from the rear of the van. It belongs to a woman.
Metzler’s DNA was discovered inside the woman’s underwear, which was located in a trash can outside the Garden City, Ga., home where he rented a room. Investigators also discovered the woman’s fleece jacket and credit card-filled pocketbook in the same garbage bin.
Reference: Georgia man who raped a woman and ‘left her for dead’ in Jasper County found guilty
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