Man Pleads Guilty in Rape, Robbery Scheme Targeting Young Women

May 4, 2022 – A Memphis man set for trial this week in Criminal Court has pled guilty to raping two women and robbing a third in separate incidents committed during a two-week period in 2015, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

Defendant Terry Lee Coley, 28, was sentenced to 30 years in prison without the possibility for parole after pleading guilty to two counts of aggravated rape and one count of aggravated robbery.

In two instances, Coley made contact with his victims on social media and told them his cousin would pick them up and drive them to a restaurant.

In one case, on Oct. 14, 2015, Coley himself picked up an 18-year-old Raleigh woman, but took her to a spot along Raleigh LaGrange Road and raped her in the car at gunpoint.

On Oct. 25, 2015, he told a 19-year-old woman he met on Instagram that his cousin ‘Carlos’ would pick her up and take her to meet him at a restaurant in the Cordova area. Instead, Coley himself picked her up, drove to an intersection in Frayser and robbed her at gunpoint.

In the third incident, on Oct. 28, 2015, Coley abducted a woman and her 2-year-old daughter at gunpoint while she was waiting for her female cousin in front of her home on Carnes in Orange Mound. He drove them to an apartment complex in the 6000 block of Summer Avenue where he raped the 18-year-old woman at gunpoint, as her baby lay next to her in the back seat of the car.

Coley was identified and arrested in November of that year.

The cases were handled this week by Asst. Dist. Attys. Lessie Rainey and Lauren Hutton.

ADA Rainey is with the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit which prosecutes cases of rape, severe physical abuse and sexual abuse of children, elder abuse and abuse of vulnerable adults.

ADA Hutton is with the District Attorney’s Vertical Team 2 which prosecutes cases in General Sessions Division 9 (Mental Health Court) and in Criminal Court Division 2.