Man Sentenced In 43-Year-Old Rape Cold Case In Silver Spring

ROCKVILLE, MD — A North Carolina man convicted of raping and assaulting two women in a case that went cold for more than four decades will spend 17 years in prison after he was sentenced in Montgomery County court, according to a report.

Marion Edward Pearson Jr. of Durham, North Carolina, pleaded guilty in October to one count of second-degree rape and one count of second-degree sex assault for the attacks, WTOP reported.

On Friday, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Rachel McGuckian sentenced Pearson to 40 years in prison with all but 17 years suspended, according to WTOP. He was also ordered to serve two years of supervised probation upon release and will be required to register as a sex offender for life.

Pearson was arrested in November 2022, eight months after cold case detectives and forensic specialists from the Montgomery County Crime Lab Biology Unit submitted evidence collected from two 1981 unsolved rape and sexual assault cases to the Combined DNA Index System for additional testing.

The FBI’s National DNA Index System later identified a match between the evidence submitted by authorities and Pearson's DNA, police said.

In the first case, a woman was assaulted and raped on April 20 near the 1800 block of University Boulevard West in Silver Spring. A second victim was attacked and sexually assaulted on June 13 in the area of Connecticut Avenue near Denfield Road.

The pattern of the attack and suspect description in the second case were similar to those in the April 20 rape, according to police. DNA evidence was collected from both attacks.

According to authorities, Pearson lived in Prince George's County in the early 1980s and was a frequent visitor to the University of Maryland/College Park area. Between 1980 and 1999, he was arrested several times for assault, indecent exposure and peeping tom.

Two years before his arrest, Pearson was released from a North Carolina prison after serving a 22-year sentence for a string of first-degree rapes. His criminal history in North Carolina includes charges for occupied burglaries with the intent of sexual assault, peeping tom, trespassing, rape and robbery, according to police.