Man just released from prison beats woman with bat, tries raping another, TN cops say

A convicted sex offender was released from prison after five years, and the next day he tried to rape a woman, then beat another woman with a bat in separate attacks, Tennessee authorities said.

Deontez Drew, 27, now faces new charges of attempted criminal homicide, especially aggravated kidnapping, especially aggravated robbery and attempted aggravated rape, Davidson County records show.

According to Tennessee’s sex offender registry, his previous offenses included rape, statutory rape and aggravated sexual battery.

His attorney information isn’t available in Davidson County records.

Drew was released July 31 from a state facility in nearby Hardeman County, then police said he went to Nashville and attacked two women less than 12 hours apart, according to a news release from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

He had been incarcerated there since 2019, according to the Hardeman County Correctional Facility.

In the first attack at about 3 a.m. Aug. 1, a 23-year-old woman told police she noticed a man was following her. As she walked under an overpass, she heard a set of footsteps quickly coming toward her, and she turned around to confront the person, according to police.

Drew pushed her to the ground, put her in a headlock and held her at knifepoint, police said. He dragged her into an alley and threatened her life if she didn’t perform sex acts, according to police.

The woman “kept her cool and deescalated the immediate situation by telling Drew that he could spend the night with her and she wouldn’t tell anyone what he had just done,” police said. “Drew told the victim that he had just gotten out of jail and didn’t want to go back.”

Then she seized an opportunity to escape and called 911 from the lobby of her apartment building, police said.

At about 2 p.m. that day, Drew is accused of beating a 39-year-old woman in her apartment building.

The woman was going home when she saw Drew in the hall outside her unit, and he told her he was delivering Uber Eats to a unit that didn’t exist, according to police.

She said she went into her apartment, but when she left again to tell property management about the encounter, she found Drew “waiting” in the elevator, police said.

He hit her in the face and the back of the head with a baseball bat, and he stole her phone as she screamed and tried to get away from him, police said.

A neighbor heard the struggle and started chasing after Drew, police said. The neighbor and a group of people surrounded him as he crawled under a car until an officer arrived and arrested him, according to police.

The woman was hospitalized for serious injuries, police said.

Drew is being held on an $800,000 bond, records show.

This story was originally published August 2, 2024 at 3:35 PM with the headline "Man just released from prison beats woman with bat, tries raping another, TN cops say."