CHARLOTTE — Investigators charged a 19-year-old woman’s boyfriend with rape and with her murder after months of alleged torture, which led to her death inside an east Charlotte apartment, police said.
[ READ MORE: Man charged with murder, rape after 19-year-old woman found dead in east Charlotte ]
The abuse happened inside the apartment along Yateswood Drive, court documents indicate.
Domestic violence advocates want people to know they’re in the community to help.
Isabella Stroupe was from Shelby, and she had family in Cleveland and Gaston counties.
The community has raised more than $5,000 to help them give her a proper memorial.
“She just appeared, in her pictures, so vulnerable,” said longtime domestic violence advocate Bea Cote.
Thomaz Hamilton, 24, was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree forcible rape in connection with Stroupe’s death.
Hamilton called 911 on Friday morning from a QT near his east Charlotte apartment, court records showed. He reported that Stroupe, the woman he said he was dating, had a heart attack during sex and stopped breathing. Officers found her tied up in a bedroom.
Stroupe had several broken bones and stab wounds, according to the medical examiner’s report.
Cote said we often look for physical signs of domestic violence.
“You have to look for those signs of control,” Cote said.
Court documents state that detectives learned she had been tortured over several months. She would have been physically incapable of providing sexual consent, which is why there is a rape charge.
“What I suspect is that he isolated her from her family and friends, more than likely, and that is one of the first tactics that abusers do,” Cote said.
Cote’s nonprofit, Impact+, has a different approach to domestic violence counseling.
They work with the abuser, holding them accountable and changing the way they justify domestic violence
Channel 9 searched Hamilton’s criminal history and could only find traffic violations and charges for carrying a concealed weapon dating back to 2021 in Cleveland County.