Police say a 2:25 a.m. call on March 14 led officers to a home on East State Street, where girls accused a 21-year-old man of giving them alcohol and attacking them.
PENDLETON, IN — A 21-year-old Pendleton man has been charged after police said he invited juvenile girls to his home, gave them alcohol and sexually attacked and battered them during a late-night encounter that brought officers to an East State Street address this month.
The case has drawn attention in central Indiana because it involves multiple girls, allegations of violence inside a private home and accusations that an adult supplied alcohol to minors before the attacks. Matson Hosier was charged with Level 6 felony strangulation and sexual battery, along with misdemeanor counts of battery resulting in bodily injury and furnishing alcohol to a minor. Authorities have released only limited public details, leaving open key questions about the full sequence of events, the number of alleged victims and the next steps in court.
According to local reports that cited court documents, Pendleton police were dispatched at about 2:25 a.m. on March 14 to 231 E. State St. after a juvenile caller told authorities that a drunk man had battered her and her friends. When officers arrived, they spoke first with Hosier, who told them he had invited multiple juvenile girls to his residence. Officers then interviewed the girls, and the accounts they gave formed the basis of the charges now filed against him. Investigators said the girls accused Hosier of giving them alcohol and then attacking them. The allegations described in those reports included choking, punching and biting. Police have not publicly said how long the girls had been at the home before the call for help or whether anyone else was present when officers arrived.
The charges reflect both sexual and physical allegations. Hosier is accused of sexual battery and strangulation, each filed as a Level 6 felony under Indiana law, and he also faces misdemeanor counts tied to bodily injury and providing alcohol to a minor. Publicly available reports did not identify the girls by name, which is common in cases involving minors and alleged sex crimes, and they did not state their exact ages. Authorities also have not publicly broken out which alleged acts relate to which girl, or whether every girl at the house is listed as a victim in the charging documents. That leaves a narrower public picture than investigators and prosecutors likely have. Still, the broad outline is clear: police say the gathering involved underage girls, alcohol and alleged violence severe enough that one girl called for help in the middle of the night. Hosier was later booked into the Madison County Jail, where reports said he remained held after the charges were announced.
Pendleton is a small town northeast of Indianapolis, and the allegation that juvenile girls were attacked inside a home in the middle of town gives the case a jarring local dimension. The address listed in reports is on East State Street, a corridor that runs through the center of Pendleton rather than an isolated rural property. That detail matters because it places the alleged crime scene in a visible part of the community, not in some distant or hidden location. In cases like this, investigators often rely on interviews, forensic exams, phone records, messages between the people involved and any available video or neighbor observations to build a timeline. None of that evidence has been described publicly in this case so far. There is also no public indication yet of whether prosecutors plan to add charges, whether alcohol was purchased by Hosier or brought to the house by others, or whether detectives believe the girls were targeted in advance. Those unanswered questions are likely to shape the case as it moves through court.
The procedural posture appears to be early. News reports described Hosier as having been charged, but they did not include a detailed probable cause affidavit, a plea in court or a publicly announced hearing schedule. That means the case could still develop quickly as prosecutors review evidence and defense attorneys begin to respond. In Indiana, Level 6 felonies are the lowest felony level, but they still can carry jail or prison exposure and can be serious when combined with multiple counts and allegations involving minors. The strangulation allegation is especially notable because prosecutors often treat it as a marker of danger in violent cases. The sexual battery count also signals that the state believes the conduct went beyond a simple unwanted touching allegation and rose to criminal sexual conduct as defined by law. No conviction has been entered, and Hosier is presumed innocent unless and until prosecutors prove the charges in court. The next likely milestones are an initial hearing if one has not already occurred, formal filing review, bond decisions and the release of additional court records that could show what investigators say happened room by room and person by person.
For now, much of the public narrative rests on the account given by the girls and the officers who responded to the scene. That makes the first police contact important: the call came not from a distant witness but from one of the girls who said she and her friends had been battered. That kind of immediate complaint can become a central piece of a prosecution timeline because it fixes a time, place and condition of the people involved close to the alleged events. At the same time, the public record remains thin enough that several important points cannot yet be stated with confidence, including whether medical treatment was sought, whether photographs documented injuries, whether text messages arranged the gathering and whether investigators collected physical evidence from inside the home. Residents in Pendleton are left with a case that is both blunt in its accusation and incomplete in its public detail. Where things stand now, Hosier is charged and jailed, the girls’ allegations are at the center of the case, and the next major development is likely to come when fuller court records or a hearing date become public.
Author note: Last updated March 29, 2026.