Man charged after 13-year-old girl raped in 2014, CMPD says

CHARLOTTE — Police have arrested a man accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl in 2014.

In a news release, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said the suspect, Travon Levi Woods, was 24 at the time of the incident.

Officers were called on Aug. 13, 2014 to Shamrock Drive, where they found the 13-year-old girl. She told officers she had been sexually assaulted by a man.

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The victim was taken to the hospital where a sexual assault kit was collected.

CMPD said in 2016, using DNA evidence, they were able to identify Woods, now 33 years old, as the suspect in the case. At the time, Woods was in prison in Taylorsville.

When he was released from prison on Oct. 4 of this year, police said they charged Woods and took him to the Mecklenburg County jail. Woods was charged with statutory rape, two counts of statutory sex offense, and four counts of indecent liberties with a minor.

Channel 9′s Glenn Counts talked to a victim of sexual assault about her experience.

″I can definitely imagine; I can almost feel the pain, especially being that young, because I was also very young,” she said.

She was sexually assaulted more than 25 years ago. Fifty-five-year-old Zellie Edwards was arrested in 2018 and his case is still pending.

″I went 25 years without an arrest it happened when I was 16, 25 years after that I got a note on my door,” she said.

The victim in this cold case can relate to the victim in this cold case from 2014.

“It’s hard no matter how old you are, but when you’re younger it’s harder to process,” she said.

She has moved on with her life, but the pain is still there. She advises the teen and other survivors not to hold the pain in, but to find someone you can trust and talk about it.

“Things change, people change and your feelings kind of stay the same and if you don’t talk about it, it just kind of bubbles up inside of you and your have to let it go, you have to let it go, you have to let that steam go, because if not it will tear you up, it will eat you alive,” she said.

Part of the reason the Edwards case it still pending is due to delays from the pandemic.

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