Cold Case Solved Involving Brutal Rape, Attempted Murder Of Woman: Harford Prosecutor

HARFORD COUNTY, MD — An Edgewood man has been sentenced in a 21-year-old cold case involving the rape of a young woman who was dumped unconscious and nude in a water-filled ravine, prosecutors said.

In the early morning hours of April 6, 2002, Maryland State Police were called to Harford Memorial Hospital for a report of a sexual assault. The victim told officers she had left her Port Deposit home to look for her boyfriend.

While out searching for him, a man in a car approached her and asked what she was doing. The victim told the man — now identified as Bryant Nakia White, 49 — she was searching for her boyfriend and he drove off, then returned. White told her he found her boyfriend up the road and she could hop in his car so he'd drive her to the boyfriend, prosecutors said.

Once in the vehicle, White locked her in, drove to a different location, brutally raped and physically assaulted her to a point of unconsciousness, then dumped her in a ravine.

"With incredible strength and the will to survive, the victim climbed out of the ravine, climbed over a chain-link fence and began walking on the shoulder of I-95, where eventually a truck driver stopped, offering her safety and shelter as he notified police. Twenty-one long years passed before a match through DNA testing came back to what had been collected from the victim’s sexual assault evidence kit. The DNA confirmed that Bryant White was the perpetrator who committed this heinous crime, a result that established that there was a 1 in 2 quintillion chance that it belonged to anyone other than Mr. White," prosecutors said.

White has been sentenced to two life sentences plus 60 years for rape in the first-degree, attempted murder in the second-degree, sex offense in the first-degree and kidnapping. He was convicted by a jury in October. White must register as a tier III sex offender for life and not contact the victim or any witnesses.

“This court is rarely at a loss for words. But I struggle mightily to summon language adequate to the task of conveying the sheer horrific brutality established by the evidence of this case. Often, we (human beings) invent fictional evils to frighten each other. But the unfortunate lesson of history is that we needn’t tax ourselves conjuring imaginary villains. We have no shortage of real ones," Cecil County Circuit Court Judge Cameron A. Brown said.

State’s Attorney James A. Dellmyer added the crime Brown committed is "one of which words cannot accurately capture the horror of."

"The details of the case seem unimaginable and the stuff of tales, yet it happened. It happened and the victim not only survived that night, but also survived the next 21 years, as well as through the trial she never thought would come. Although ‘victim’ is the technical term used, she is far from one; she is a survivor whose strength is limitless both as a source and in its inspiration to others," Dellmyer said. "The defendant, on the other hand, is a predator who has proven to be extremely dangerous to society and I am relieved to say that he will never again pose a threat to anyone else because of this sentence."