St. Paul rape charge: Woman found unconscious at man’s house had been given date rape drug

Mara H. Gottfried, Pioneer Press
·4 min read
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When a 22-year-old woman’s family was concerned they couldn’t reach her, the GPS location of her phone led police to find her unconscious in a St. Paul man’s house.

She was hospitalized as “critically ill” and found to have GHB, more commonly known as the “date rape drug,” in her system, according to a criminal charge announced Friday by the Ramsey County attorney’s office.

The woman’s condition improved and she reported she hung out with a man, identified as 38-year-old Kyle Arthur Kamp, a few times in January and February 2023. She said they didn’t talk again until October and he picked her up the night of Nov. 14.

After drinking at various locations, she ended up back at Kamp’s house. She said she didn’t see him pour the last shot, but remembered taking it shortly after 2 a.m. and sending a text message to her sister.

“But that’s it, she has no further recall until waking in the hospital,” the criminal complaint said.

There has been another report of a GHB-involved sexual assault case involving Kamp, which remains under investigation, said Dennis Gerhardstein, Ramsey County attorney’s office spokesman.

“This case is a prime example of the greater collaboration and implementation of our improvement plan on sexual assault investigations in 2019, where we envisioned being able to uncover more cases like this where we would connect the dots with other victims across our region,” Gerhardstein said in a statement.

Neither Kamp nor an attorney could be reached for comment Friday.

Put on ventilator at hospital

In the recently charged case, the woman’s mother contacted police on Nov. 15 to report her daughter hadn’t returned home and wasn’t answering her phone.

The woman’s younger sister reported that Kamp picked up her sister from their house the night before. The woman’s phone’s location was pinging to Kamp’s address in St. Paul’s Highwood neighborhood.

As police were gathering information from the woman’s family, other officers went to Kamp’s residence on Hadley Street off Winthrop Street. Kamp let officers inside and the woman was in the living room, unconscious but breathing.

Kamp told paramedics the woman had been unconscious from drinking since 2 a.m., the complaint said. Paramedics took her to a hospital, where she arrived just before 4 p.m. She had respiratory failure and was put on a ventilator. Tests were conducted out of concern she’d “ingested a substance which was causing a toxic reaction,” the complaint continued.

She was found to have a low level of alcohol in her system, while GHB was discovered in her system. The drug can cause blackouts, memory loss and respiratory arrest.

‘Felt uneasy’ at man’s house

The woman’s condition improved and she was able to talk to a physician on Nov. 16. She told an investigator she had seven to eight shots of liquor during the course of the night, which she said wouldn’t make her lose consciousness.

“Kamp wanted to go to his house and she was OK with it,” the complaint said of what she reported, “When they arrived, she felt uneasy,” so she contacted “her sister and told her to watch her location.” Her sister subsequently couldn’t reach her.

The woman reported she asked Kamp for a ride home and he said, “You want to leave me already?” according to the complaint. She said she tried to use Lyft to schedule a ride home but couldn’t find any drivers.

Text messages showed the woman wrote to her sister that she thought the man wanted sex, but “it ain’t happening” with a thumbs down emoji. She said she never agreed to any sexual relations with Kamp that night, the complaint said.

A nurse examiner conducted a sexual assault exam, found an area of redness and pain and collected sperm for testing.

He says they drank, had sex, passed out

Kamp told the officers who were at his house to check on the woman that they each had about 30 shots of tequila, had sex and passed out, the complaint said. He woke up about 7 a.m. and went to his bed.

When he woke again in the afternoon, he assumed the woman had taken a Lyft or Uber home, but then found her vomiting in the bathroom. He said he found her passed out again when he got out of the shower.

An investigator contacted him and he “initially agreed to be interviewed. He then obtained an attorney and his interview was canceled,” the complaint said.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Kamp with first-degree criminal sexual conduct. After Kamp’s arrest Wednesday, he made his first court appearance Thursday and a judge set bail at $80,000.

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