Crime & Safety
Man Pleads Guilty to Raping Marriottsville Woman
A video surveillance system captured the man chasing the woman through her neighborhood after she escaped the initial attack, said a state's attorney's spokesperson.
A Carroll County man pleaded guilty this week in Howard County Circuit Court to second-degree rape after a brutal 2012 attack in which he kidnapped, tied-up and assaulted his former girlfriend inside her Marriottsville home.
Joseph Dwayne Caudill, 40, of Hampstead, was previously convicted by a jury of kidnapping and second-degree assault in the case in May, but the jury deadlocked on the rape charge, according to Wayne Kirwan, a spokesperson for the Howard County state's attorney's office.
Caudill was scheduled to be retried on the rape charge this week, but he pleaded guilty at a motions hearing that preceded the trial, according to Kirwan.
During the May trial prosecutors described the Aug. 15, 2012 attack as a "horror story" in which Caudill used a stolen key to enter the woman's home, then "tortured" her by strangling her with her bathrobe belt, beating her and raping her, according to Kirwan.
The woman escaped from the home after the initial attack and ran to a neighbor's vacant home, followed by Caudill. A video surveillance camera captured the chase, which was played in court during the trial, according to Kirwan.
Caudill is scheduled to be sentenced on March 7, 2014.
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