MINNEAPOLIS — A Hennepin County Grand Jury indicted a Hopkins man for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, first-degree assault and one count of soliciting prostitution.
The grand jury returned the indictment Jan. 23 against DeQuarn Markeyth Bell, 24, on three separate felony charges.
According to the criminal complaint, on Sept. 9, Hopkins police were dispatched to a gas station upon the report of a prior domestic assault. There, officers met with the victim, Bell’s girlfriend, who stated that Bell had assaulted her in late-July.
The victim told police that Bell repeatedly burned her with a hot curling iron all over her body, including her face, neck, chest, armpit, back, and leg. There were 14 burn marks in total. The victim also stated that Bell took her phone and keys, preventing her from leaving the apartment after the assault took place. On Sept. 9, the victim was able to escape on foot to the gas station where she called the police, the criminal complaint states:
On September 13, 2019, officers executed a search warrant at defendant’s apartment and recovered a curling iron. The victim came in to the police department to identify the curling iron. Upon seeing it, victim broke down and started sobbing. She told officers that she had not told them everything. She disclosed that in addition to defendant burning her face and body, he also penetrated her vagina with the hot curling iron. Victim described that defendant burned her on her leg and she bent over as a result. The defendant then stated that he was going to put the curling iron in her butt. She tried to crawl away, but defendant burned her on her neck. She stated that defendant then put the curling iron on the outside of her vagina before pushing it inside her vagina. She stated that she jumped back at the feeling of her uterus burning and the iron came out. The defendant then grabbed her ponytail and burned her chest. The defendant told her, “When I’m done, you’ll look like Freddy Krueger.” The victim was in such pain after the assault that she couldn’t move for at least a day.
In addition to Bell burning her face and body, the victim disclosed that he also penetrated her vagina with the hot curling iron. The victim was taken in for a sexual assault examination, revealing that she had redness and scarring to her external genitalia and to the inside of her vaginal opening consistent with being burned with a curling iron, the criminal complaint states.
The victim described that she begged and cried for defendant to stop burning her, but he refused until she finally lied and said she was snapchatting his brother.
Bell is currently in custody with bail set at $2M.
