'She Can't Tell Us What's Wrong'

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The victim couldn't tell anyone what happened that night. She was a woman with an intellectual disability who doesn't speak words. So the alleged rape was discovered, according to the police report, only by accident — when a staff worker said she walked into the woman's room and saw her boss with his pants down.

Early in the morning on Nov. 13, 2016, police were called to the cottage at the Rainier School, a state institution in rural Washington, for adults with intellectual disabilities. They arrested Terry Wayne Shepard and took him to the police station. Shepard, the longtime supervisor in the building, denied that he'd had sex with the disabled woman. Police wanted a DNA sample for testing; Shepard said, according to the documents that charged him in court, that he had already given his DNA sample "in regard to a previous sexual assault allegation 2 to 3 years ago."


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