‘You don’t see someone like him coming.’ Former soldier raped, strangled woman in DFW

A former soldier was found guilty by a Tarrant County jury of raping a woman in a Grapevine hotel room in 2017.

In May 2017, Steven Dean Pham, 34, was in DFW for a training program. While in town, another soldier in the program became friends with a local woman, according to a news release from the Tarrant County district attorney’s office. The woman was invited to join the group at a bar on the soldiers’ last night in town.

After going to the bar and a party, the woman stayed at a Grapevine hotel room with the soldier she had become friends with, according to the DA’s office. As the soldier was preparing to leave the next morning to catch a flight, Pham showed up at the door. The soldier escorted Pham out with him as he left the room and urged Pham to go back to his own room.

Instead, Pham went back to the woman’s room and told her he had left his room key inside. When she opened the door, he began to slap and punch her. He strangled her into unconsciousness. When she woke up, Pham was raping her, the news release said.

When Pham finished assaulting the woman, he took her phone, threatening to kill her if she resisted. He was recorded running out of the room on the hotel’s security camera, the DA said.

Someone called police when they heard screams from the hotel room and when police arrived, they arrested Pham in his own hotel room where he was getting ready to leave for a flight.

The woman’s phone was found in his carry-on bag.

Pham, who is from North Carolina, was sentenced to six years and six months in prison.

“We’re taught to avoid the ‘creepy people’ in dark alleys, and to cross the street to avoid dangerous-looking men coming toward us. But you don’t see someone like Steven Pham coming,” lead prosecutor Sarah Sherman said in the release. “Pham used his occupation as a soldier to gain trust, and abused that trust by committing a violent sexual crime. There are no stereotypes when it comes to sex offenders.”

Pham was dishonorably discharged from the army after the assault.

This story was originally published November 30, 2018 at 4:29 PM with the headline "‘You don’t see someone like him coming.’ Former soldier raped, strangled woman in DFW."