LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — A woman has come forward claiming she was assaulted by a man connected to the death of her close friend and two other women.
Nearly two weeks ago, LEX 18's Kayleigh Randle shared with you an exclusive story about Hilory Davis, a 42-year-old woman who was found dead from an overdose in a Lexington Super 8 in November. Her death, along with the deaths of two other women, are now under investigation.
The common thread between them is 44-year-old Brian Epperson, and now another woman has come forward saying she was seeing Epperson and believes an encounter with him left her the victim of a crime.
Heather Shelton, a recovering meth addict who joined the Hope Center Recovery Program in Lexington in 2023, says she believes Epperson drugged and assaulted her during a meeting at a hotel.
"I don't think there's a punishment enough to me that will ever be okay with what he's taken from me and everyone else," Shelton said.
Shelton was a close friend of Hilory Davis, a 42-year-old woman who was found dead from an overdose at a Lexington Super 8 hotel in November. Davis' death, along with the deaths of two other women, is now under investigation, with Epperson being the common connection between them.
Shelton says when she found out Davis had died it was a punch to the gut.
"She was very positive all the time. We didn't understand how you could be that happy in sobriety. She was. She was always a health nut too," Shelton said.
According to a toxicology report, Davis had 72,000 nanograms per milliliter of meth in her blood — 360 times more than the average overdose amount.
Shelton says Epperson reached out to her two weeks after Davis' death. The two connected through their grief and began seeing each other more frequently. She says Epperson even sent her money through Cash App, which she declined numerous times.
But in March, Shelton says things took a turn for the worse after meeting Epperson at the Fairfield Marriott Hotel.
"I had asked him if he was hungry because this was about lunch time he was finally- and I was hungry. He said are you thirsty? And I said yeah and I didn't think about it. That's when I was given the water bottle. And in my mind, when you open the water bottle what do you think you're hearing? The plastic cracking, the top pussing, I don't remember any of that," Shelton said.
Her next memory was waking up alone, cold, and undressed. "By myself. My stomach hurt, I was tired. I couldn't get- I couldn't physically get myself up," recalls Shelton. "What happened? Why are you not here? Why are you not here? It was so late that it was breakfast when I finally woke up the next day because it was noon prior," Shelton said.
Shelton had been missing for 20 hours, and her roommate had spent the entire day searching for her after she never returned home.
Though Shelton did not go to the hospital or file a police report at the time, she says she recently shared her story with the FBI.
"I don't think I really wanted to know because I already knew. It's one thing to know, it's another thing to accept it," Shelton admits. "He's not gonna touch you now. He can't do anything to us now. He took what he took from us for his gratification and he can't take anything else."
You can find our full coverage of Brian Epperson and the overdose deaths he is connected to on our We Follow Through page and our YouTube channel.
