Group shows up at courthouse to support victim in Stoddard County rape case

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. -- They numbered more than 40 -- most of them wearing pink T-shirts in support of the victim of an alleged rape that took place in rural Stoddard County in the early morning hours of March 18.

The group included the woman who police reportedly found being raped in an isolated cemetery south of Advance, Mo. Family and friends encircled her outside the Stoddard County Justice Center on Thursday morning before a court appearance by her alleged attacker.

Inside, her mother and sister were by her side to witness the second court appearance of her accused rapist, Steven Clark Rendleman, 51, the Advance man who has been convicted of rape twice in the past and who, in 2009, pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct in Cape Girardeau County.

Rendleman is charged with rape with aggravating acts and forcible sodomy, kidnapping, felonious restraint, two counts of first-degree assault of a law enforcement officer, property damage and resisting arrest.

Rendleman was charged after allegedly taking the woman, who witnesses stated was in an "incoherent and unconscious" state, from an Advance bar to Liberty Hill Cemetery, near his parents' home, where he was residing at the time, and repeatedly raping her for nearly two hours. Results from a drug test performed on the victim following Rendleman's arrest have not been released.

On the backs of the T-shirts worn by the alleged victim's supporters were the words, "Faith, Love and Community = Survival" -- depicting the three things the alleged victim's mother, Debbie Rhodes, said have sustained her daughter and her family since the incident.

Rhodes credits family, friends, and many total strangers with providing her family members the strength to endure.

Rhodes is as quick to credit the work of Stoddard County sheriff's deputies in the apprehension of the accused. It was Stoddard County sheriff's deputy Tim McCoy who reportedly searched for and found Rendleman with the victim in the rural cemetery March 18 just after midnight. Rendleman initially fled from the deputies, leading officers on a chase that ended with McCoy firing his stun gun at Rendleman three times before his eventual surrender.

The alleged rape victim faced the accused in court for the first time Thursday. Rendleman appeared before Judge Joe Z. Satterfield, who set May 3 for a preliminary hearing.

Debbie Rhodes and a host of her daughter's supporters vowed to appear at every future court appearance involving Rendleman.

"With all the love and support that she's getting," Rhodes said of her daughter's recovery, both physically and emotionally, "she will get through this."

Pertinent address:

Bloomfield, MO

Advance, MO