Wyandotte County man charged in 2 rape cases could spend life behind bars
Mar 19, 2025
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Wyandotte County man accused of raping a woman in September 2020 is charged four-and-a-half years later in Jackson County Court. If convicted, he could receive a life sentence.
Peytrien Lavelle McClenton, 35, is charged with first-degree rape, second-degree assault and two c
ounts of first-degree sodomy nearly five years after he offered to drive a woman home from the liquor store.
The victim told police that she had never met McClenton before that night but that she needed a ride home. Court documents said when the two arrived at the victim's home, she came across her father and his friend.
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An argument ensued between the victim and her father, so she kicked him and his friend out of the house. The victim told police that McClenton got angry with her because he thought her father was trying to take advantage of him in some way.
From there, court documents said McClenton hit the victim in the head repeatedly with a handgun. He then told her to remove her clothes and proceeded to sexually assault her.
Later, when the victim asked McClenton if she could get a drink of water, he told her to "get a drink from the bathtub so that he could keep her in sight while he kept ahold of the gun."
The suspect then told the victim to go upstairs and wait 30 minutes before coming back down. She did, and when she finally went back downstairs McClenton was gone.
The victim went to a gas station and called the police. Court documents said she had scratches on her back and a cut on the top of her head where she had been pistol-whipped.
Despite positively identifying McClenton using his Facebook page, police did not arrest him. Court documents said that detectives later verified McClenton's identity through further investigation.
While at the hospital, the victim had a sexual assault examination done but only a minimal amount of DNA was found.
Court documents said detectives tried to contact McClenton by calling him and visiting his home but that they "were met with negative results."
Less than two years later in 2022, McClenton was named the prime suspect in a separate KCPD rape report via evidence collected from a sexual assault exam on the victim. Two months later on June 30, 2022, a notification confirmed the male DNA profiles in both cases matched one another but that there was no profile for McClenton to compare them to.
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A different court filing shows that the KCPD Career Criminal Squad was conducting surveillance on McClenton in June 2024. Investigators knew he had two Active Stop Orders for Rape issued by Kansas City, Missouri police and two Kansas City, Missouri city warrants for assault.
The rapes for which he was wanted happened in September 2020 and April 2022 while the two city warrants for assault were issued in October 2018 and August 2019.
Officers followed McClenton and received instructions from the tactical team to pull him over and arrest him for the two STOP orders and municipal arrest warrants. They turned on their sirens to pull him over to conduct a traffic stop.
However, court documents said McClenton sped off and got up to 100 miles per hour on 71 Highway. Officers eventually arrested him and charged him with resisting arrest.
He was due in court on December 18, 2024, which is when investigators took a buccal swab. Court documents then showed that the lab results from that swab showed him to be a one-in-one-billion match to the DNA at the September 2020 rape scene. He has not been charged in the 2022 case.
McClenton is due in court Thursday for the rape, sodomy, and assault charges. His bond is set at $500,000. He's currently on house arrest, according to court records. If convicted of first-degree rape, he could receive up to a life sentence.
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Meanwhile, he was in court the previous day, Wednesday, for the resisting arrest charge. If convicted, he could spend up to four years in prison.
FOX4 contacted Kansas City Police and the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office to ask why it took so long to arrest McClenton and if there's possibly more victims. KCPD deferred us to the Prosecutor's Office, who did not respond. ...read more read less