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March 18, 2006
South Carolina Rapist Charged in Assaults Captured
A convicted sex offender apparently hid out in the woods for four days before he was captured about a mile from his home, where police say he bound and raped two teenage girls in an underground room.
Kenneth G. Hinson was tired and thirsty when he showed up at the back door of a relative's home Friday and asked for water, authorities said. The relative gave it to him, then called 911. Hinson, who was carrying a loaded handgun, was quickly arrested.
"He looked like a man that was sort of relieved that it was over," said Chief Deputy Tom Gainey of the Darlington County Sheriff's Department.
During his arrest, videotaped and shown on WIS-TV in Columbia, Hinson assured authorities his relatives hadn't tried to hide him.
"No, they're not harboring, I just come up to the back window," he said.
The two 17-year-old girls had been sleeping in a nearby home late Monday when Hinson, 47, allegedly kidnapped each girl and assaulted her in a room under a shed on his property, police said. The two girls were left bound inside the room but managed to wriggle free and walk to safety.
Local, state and federal authorities had been searching for Hinson in the woods around his neighborhood, about 20 miles northwest of Florence, since Tuesday.
He was charged with kidnapping and rape and taken to the county jail, Gainey said. He also faces burglary and assault and battery charges.
In 1991, Hinson had been convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl. He left prison in 2000, an early release that state Attorney General Henry McMaster criticized Friday.
"This man was sentenced to 20 years. Had that 20 years meant 20 years, he'd still be in jail now, and this wouldn't have happened," he said.
Just before Hinson's release from prison in 2000, a review committee recommended he be committed indefinitely to a Department of Mental Health facility for treatment. But Circuit Judge Edward Cottingham rejected the recommendation, saying prosecutors failed to show that Hinson would likely offend again.
"I can't control what comes before me as a judge," Cottingham said Friday. "And I deal with what's before me and make a ruling to the best of my judgment."
Cottingham said he did not remember the specific case but said state law requires prosecutors to show probable cause that the person will commit another sexual assault.
"Obviously I regret that these young children were raped by this man," the judge said.
Posted by Nealus at March 18, 2006 04:13 PM
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