January 8, 2009
Towson rape suspect faces new assault charge
A Baltimore man charged with raping a Towson University student has been charged by city police in connection with a second rape that occurred in a parking lot at the Inner Harbor this month, police said.
Police said Ian Alexander Murphy, 24, was linked to the crime after a possession of the city victim was recovered from the scene of the Towson rape.
Baltimore County police "found evidence on the scene of their rape that led them to a Baltimore City address. As it turned out, that evidence was actually property of the victim in [the city] rape," said Nicole Monroe, a Baltimore City police spokeswoman. "He actually committed one crime and left at that crime scene evidence from another crime scene."
In the Baltimore County case, Murphy was charged with first-degree rape, a first-degree sex offense and kidnapping in the attack on a 21-year-old woman Oct. 6 near the apartment building where she lives on Knollwood Road. She was approached by a man about 1 a.m. as she unloaded groceries and was forced to walk to an area where the assault would be hidden by shrubberies, county police said.
That attack came three days after the Oct. 3 rape of a 22-year-old woman in the 700 block of Eastern Ave. In that incident, city police said the victim had just gotten off work about 2 a.m. and was waiting for a ride home at a 7-Eleven store on Baltimore Street when a man engaged her in conversation. They walked to Federal Hill to hang out, and the victim agreed to go back to the suspect's hotel room, which he said was at the waterfront.
They walked around Piers 5 and 6, a heavily traveled commercial area that includes upscale restaurants and is just steps away from the National Aquarium and Power Plant Live.
The victim told police that when she questioned the man about the location of the hotel, he grabbed her by the hair and forced her between two tractor-trailers on a large parking lot. Police said he threatened to kill her and sexually assaulted her there.
Five years ago, Murphy was acquitted by a jury of sexual battery in Royal Palm Beach, Fla., a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Clerk's office said.
Murphy was charged with armed sexual battery after police said he assaulted a woman in June 2002 behind a restaurant, then threatened several people with a knife before leaving.
Murphy spent 13 months in jail awaiting trial, according to police, and said in a taped statement before his trial that he would flee the country to avoid prosecution. The jury took about an hour to find Murphy not guilty.
In 2005, Murphy was convicted in Baltimore of first-degree burglary and sentenced to eight years in jail, with all but three months suspended, according to court records. In May 2006, he was found guilty of violating his probation and sentenced to five years in prison, records show.
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