Troy Graves was born on May 4, 1972, in Minnesota to Earl and Michal Graves. Following the divorce of his parents in 1986, he was raised by his mother along with his older brother, Marc. The family relocated during his youth, and he spent much of his formative years in New York and Pennsylvania. Graves dropped out of Bensalem High School in 1989 and worked a variety of jobs in the Philadelphia area during the early 1990s. He lived in several neighborhoods, including West Philadelphia and Center City — areas that would later become critical in understanding his connection to a series of rapes and one high-profile murder.

Graves was known for maintaining a relatively low profile and lived what seemed to be an unremarkable life to outsiders. However, behind closed doors, he was harboring violent tendencies. His background prior to joining the military remains relatively sparse in the public record, but investigators later described his ability to blend into society as one of the most chilling aspects of his criminal pattern.

In late 1999, his whereabouts were largely unknown until he joined the United States Air Force and reported for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. After completing training, he was assigned in April 2000 to F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he worked as a maintenance technician on missile silos.

In March 2001, Graves married a woman in Larimer County, Colorado, and the couple settled in Fort Collins. They lived just west of the Colorado State University campus, in a quiet residential area. 

Between 1997 and 1999, Philadelphia was gripped by fear as a serial rapist targeted women across the city’s Center City district. Dubbed the “Center City Rapist” by media outlets, the attacker broke into women’s homes, often during the night, and sexually assaulted them at knifepoint. On May 7, 1998, the crime spree escalated into murder when Shannon Schieber, a 23-year-old graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, was raped and strangled in her apartment. Her death drew massive public attention and an outcry over police missteps in earlier related cases.

Despite extensive efforts, police were unable to identify a suspect at the time. In 1999, the rapes appeared to stop — coinciding with Graves' departure from Philadelphia and his entry into the Air Force. For over two years, the identity of the Center City Rapist remained unknown.

In 2001, a new wave of rapes in Fort Collins, Colorado, bore eerie similarities to those in Philadelphia. Multiple women reported being attacked in their homes by a masked intruder with a weapon. Local law enforcement began a large-scale investigation, eventually sharing their findings with Philadelphia police. As both departments compared case notes, they discovered overlapping timelines and geographic evidence that placed one man — Troy Graves — in both locations during the periods of the attacks.

Graves was arrested in Fort Collins in April 2002. Forensic testing confirmed that DNA and fingerprint evidence matched samples recovered in both Philadelphia and Fort Collins cases. Under overwhelming evidence, Graves confessed to his crimes and, within five weeks of his arrest, pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of Shannon Schieber, as well as the rapes of numerous other women across both cities. He admitted to at least six rapes in Fort Collins and several more in Philadelphia.

In 2002, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He is currently serving his sentence at the Sterling Correctional Facility in Colorado.