Mark Bowden - The Best American Crime Writing 2006

In 2000, Doan went for a late-night snack at the Eat 'n Park on Cuyahoga Falls Avenue. There he noticed eighteen-year-old Colleen Imes.

"By the state's standards, she was an adult, but really, she was still a kid," says Summit County Detective Patrick Hunt. "She was so petite, she couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds wet."

Imes was just Doan's type-tiny and troubled. He approached her with a polite bow and offered to buy her food. Imes agreed.

Doan claimed to be a Dr. Chang. He said he worked at Akron City Hospital.

She told him that she was a dancer at Lisa's Cabaret, a strip joint on Exchange Street. She'd had a troubled childhood, she revealed, and recently moved out of her mom's place.

Doan made her an offer she couldn't refuse, she later told police: He'd pay her six thousand dollars to be his date to various professional dinners and events. No sex, just companionship, he promised. Imes accepted.

Maybe it was his rotten teeth or his too-good-to-be-true offer, but something told Imes to be leery. She had three friends follow her on their first date.

Imes met Doan for drinks before he drove her to Steve's Motel, a by-the-hour roadhouse in Green.

As Imes sat on the bed watching TV, Doan excused himself to go to the restroom. When he returned, his pants were down to his ankles, his penis erect. Imes told him to pull his pants up.

At first, Doan complied, saying it was just a joke. But within minutes, he pushed her onto the bed and raped her, she said.

Imes would've done better to flee at first chance. Instead, she stayed by Doan's side, pressing him for payment.

He drove her to the Fifth Third Bank on Tallmadge Road. But when he couldn't get cash from the ATM, Imes's friends surrounded him. Doan called 911 and claimed he was being robbed.

When police arrived, Imes cried rape. Detective Hunt investigated, but prosecutors ultimately told him to drop the case. Imes died in a car crash less than a year later.

"It was the saddest sight," he said. "She was a cute girl with the lowest self-esteem. She was just desperate. He picked a perfect victim."

It's the same way Summit County Detective Mike Coghenour speaks of Amanda Stamps. She was twenty-one, "ninety pounds soaking wet," he says, a troubled single mother into drugs and dangerous men.

In 2002, Stamps said, a friend set her up with Doan on a blind date. He was a doctor, she was told, willing to pay as much as six thousand dollars for a nonsexual escort.

Stamps met Doan for dinner. After a few drinks, Stamps claims she slipped into unconsciousness. She believed Doan slipped her a roofie.

She briefly awoke to find herself in a motel room with Doan on top of her. When she finally regained consciousness, Stamps was in Doan's car in the parking lot of Akron General, waiting for her money.

Once again, Doan said the ATM wasn't working. Stamps headed to St. Thomas Hospital for a rape exam.

By the time Coghenour got the case, the Summit County Sheriff's Department was becoming all too familiar with Doan- "aka Dr. Chang, aka Dr. Kitano." But once again, there were problems. "Like the rest of the cases, she waited around for her money, which looked bad," Coghenour says. "It looked like she was trying to turn a trick. It threw a wrench right in her story."

No charges were filed. Shortly after the case was closed, Stamps died of a heroin overdose.

Angela Smith curls up on a loveseat in her Tallmadge condo. Surrounded by photos of her husband and children, Smith clutches the same black-and-white mug shot of Doan that Renee held weeks earlier. She's thirty years old, but her light brown pony-tail and button nose make her appear barely legal.

She lets out an ironic chuckle."He told me I was unique," Smith says.

She met Doan in March at Club 1245, a strip joint just blocks from her home. Smith sat at the bar with her ex-boyfriend, Maurice. They were waiting for their friend, a dancer, to get off work.

As she smoked and sipped beer, Doan approached Maurice and asked if he was with Smith.When he said no, Doan gave Maurice his phone number to pass along.

As Doan left the bar, he bowed in Smith's direction. Later that day, Smith called Doan to ask what he wanted. "He laid it on thick," she says.

He said he was a Japanese neurosurgeon at Akron General. He gave her a name, not Doan, but something Smith couldn't pronounce. She decided to call him "Wu."

Smith had had hip-replacement surgery a few years earlier at Akron General. She asked Doan if he knew her surgeon,

Dr. Weiner. "Dr. Weiner! I just bought a house next door to Dr. Weiner!" he said.

Doan finally asked Smith if she'd accept six thousand dollars to be his date. "You've got the wrong idea," she said."I'm not a stripper, and I don't have sex for money."

"No, no! I don't pay for sex," he said. "Only for companionship."

He explained that eighteen-hour days at the hospital made it hard for him to meet women. He was worried that his colleagues thought he was gay, because he always came to hospital functions alone. He'd pay her six thousand dollars to accompany him. "He knew I had two kids and I could use the money," she says."He said I could use the six thousand dollars to buy a computer for my son."

Smith accepted.The next morning, Doan called."Can you meet me?" he asked.

Smith met Doan at a gas station. He said he'd just been paged and had to go to work, and asked Smith to follow him to the hospital. He went into the building, while Smith waited in her car.

When he came out, he said he found someone to cover for him. "Would you like to go to dinner?" he asked. "We take my car."

Smith got into Doan's blue Honda. In the back seat were medical books and a lab coat. He began talking about medicine, using terminology Smith had never heard. "I totally believed he was a doctor. I had no reason not to," she says. "He like studies this shit, just so he can go out and do this."

They didn't go to a restaurant. Instead, Doan drove them to the Office Motel in Springfield Township. Smith had no idea where she was."I don't make a habit out of going to hotels that charge by the hour," she says."And I never leave my side of town."

Doan told her he wanted to take a look at the scars from her hip replacement and caesarean section, which she'd mentioned on the phone. He could fix them with advanced laser surgery, he said.

Inside the room, Doan covered the bed with crisp white sheets and asked Smith to take off her pants so he could see her scars."He sensed I thought it was weird," Smith says. "He said he had to do it there, because if the hospital found out he was helping me for free, he'd get in trouble. He was so nice and soft-spoken. I wasn't worried. He looked like if you pushed him, you'd break him."

As he pretended to examine Smith, Doan asked her if she'd dance for him. Smith said no. "He started his smooth-talking shit again, claiming it was just a joke."

Then, Smith says, Doan went down on her. Smith said she tried to wriggle away, but she was afraid that if she didn't cooperate, he wouldn't pay her.

Doan slowly pulled a dildo from underneath his clothes and began inserting it into her. She kicked him away, but he slapped her in the face with the latex phallus, pinned her down, and raped her.

When it was over, he insisted that she shower.Then he drove her back to the hospital to get her car. On the way there, he suggested that they pick up her kids and get a bite to eat. Smith said no; she just wanted her money. He said he'd pay her later.

Smith never told her husband about the arrangement. In a panic, she called her ex-boyfriend, Maurice. Doan had promised him an extra two hundred dollars for setting them up. Maurice said he'd get her money.

Then Smith called a friend, who encouraged her to go to St. Thomas for a rape exam. She also contacted the police.