Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Suspect caught in underground room assaults

HARTSVILLE, S.C. - A convicted rapist accused of abducting two teenage girls and assaulting them in a hidden underground room behind his home was captured Friday less than 2 miles away, authorities said.

Kenneth G. Hinson, 47, fled on foot after the girls escaped and called police. Although he was carrying a handgun, Hinson was arrested without incident after a neighbor saw him, said Deputy U.S. Marshal Tim Stec.

The two 17-year-old girls were taken from their nearby home late Monday and assaulted in a room under a shed on Hinson's property, police said. The girls were left bound inside the room but managed to wriggle free and walk to safety.

Local, state and federal authorities had been searching woods near his home since Tuesday.

Hinson, who faces charges of kidnapping and rape, was captured after a resident saw him go to a house to get some water late Friday afternoon, said Chief Deputy Tom Gainey of the Darlington County Sheriff's Department.

In 1991, Hinson was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl.

He was released from prison in 2000 after serving nine years of a 20-year sentence, a decision 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," McMaster said.

[Last modified March 18, 2006, 02:30:29]