Virginia Beach – A man has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for raping two Virginia Beach mothers back in the early 1990s, according to the police.
The rapes began when the defendant entered a mother's home on South Palm Avenue in the middle of the night one June evening in 1990. After illegally breaking and entering into the woman's home, he held a knife to the 6 months pregnant mother of two's throat telling her, "Don't do anything stupid or I'm gonna kill all three of you." After sexually assaulting the pregnant mother, he stole her phones and dumped the knife in her neighbor's yard as he fled the scene of the crime.
The rapist struck again the following year in August of 1991, when he entered another home belonging to a Virginia Beach mother who lived on South Kentucky Avenue using the same modus operandi, entering her home in the middle of the night. As the mother got up to check on her sleeping baby, she saw the defendant holding a butcher knife, approaching her from the kitchen. After forcing the woman to her bedroom, he raped her; he also stole various belongings and cash from his second victim.
Macie Pridgen of the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office said the 53-year-old defendant and resident of Virginia Beach was sentenced to two life terms; they were suspended with 45 years remaining to serve. The defendant pleaded guilty earlier this year in March of 2012.
The two rape cases remained unsolved along with tens of thousands of others across the country. It wasn't until 1998 to 1999 that the Virginia Beach Police Department submitted the two women's victim physical evidence recovery kits in hopes of finding a new DNA match in the system. It just so happened that the defendant's DNA was already in the system, thus producing a match to the DNA found on the victims' bodies over twenty years ago.
The convicted rapist's criminal record goes all the way back to 1979, and it includes convictions for various crimes such as breaking and entering, escaping from custody, hit and run, attempted rape, failure to register as a sex offender, statutory burglary, obtaining money by false pretenses, possession of Schedule I and Schedule II substances and a slew of other criminal offenses.
If you or someone you love is facing criminal charges in Virginia Beach, you are urged to contact attorney Vaughan C. Jones as soon as possible. Attorney Jones earned his Juris Doctor degree from the American University, Washington School of Law. After law school, he served in one of the seven legal clerkships for the Virginia Supreme Court, from there he went on to work as an Assistant Attorney General where he represented the Governor of Virginia, and served as special counsel to the Virginia Department of Corrections. In 1999, he became a prosecutor for the Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, which gave him invaluable insight into how the prosecution thinks and acts. Today, he focuses strictly on defending the rights of the criminally accused. To schedule your confidential consultation with attorney Jones, please contact the firm without delay.