MD MD - Fletcher Worrell, Serial Rapist, "Silver Spring Rapist"

Richard

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Between 1987 and 1991, there was a serial rapist terrorizing the Silver Spring area of Montgomery County, Maryland. The crimes went unsolved until April 2005, when old evidence was tested for DNA and it matched with a suspect. That person has subsequently been convicted of a number of related charges.

The below story and link (which includes more information) details how some crimes committed as much as 32 years ago in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland were solved. What other crimes did he committ in those years?

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After 32 Years, Clothing Yields a DNA Key to Dozens of Rapes
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: April 27, 2005
New York Times
Kevin White was arrested on Jan. 31 in a string of sexual assaults and robberies on the Upper East Side after being identified by victims in a police lineup.

A forgotten piece of evidence in a rape case from more than 30 years ago - a pair of women's underpants - has led to the DNA identification of a suspect in at least 24 other rapes and sexual assaults stretching from New York to Maryland, the authorities said yesterday.

The DNA matches have linked the man to a notorious series of unsolved rapes that terrorized Montgomery County in Maryland and drew comparisons with the rampage of the Boston Strangler. Manhattan authorities said the Maryland cases might be only the beginning, as other states run the suspect's samples through their own DNA databanks.

The man, identified by his lawyer as Fletcher Anderson Worrell, 58, was located in an Atlanta suburb late last year after he tried to buy a shotgun. The background check turned up two arrest warrants for him in New York City.

The warrants were issued after Mr. Worrell - also known as Clarence Williams - jumped bail in 1978 and vanished as he was facing retrials in two rape cases in New York.

Manhattan prosecutors said yesterday that as they were preparing to extradite Mr. Worrell from Georgia last fall, they looked in his old file. There, tucked away for 32 long years in a legal folder, they found one victim's underwear.

Using DNA technology that was barely imagined at the time of the crimes, the prosecutors said they conclusively linked Mr. Worrell to one of the rapes.

"It ought to send a chill through a lot of defendants to know that after 32 years you can still test for DNA," Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, said yesterday as he announced the breakthrough in the case.

But the discoveries did not stop there. The old DNA sample, and a fresh one from Mr. Worrell, were processed through a national DNA data bank compiled beginning in 1990. The samples linked Mr. Worrell to nine unsolved sexual assaults in Maryland and two in New Jersey, the prosecutors said.

Authorities in Maryland said they now believe that Mr. Williams is the man they called the Silver Spring rapist, who committed the nine assaults and at least 12 others between 1987 and 1991.

Paul Kalleberg, the deputy chief of the prosecutor's office in Morris County, New Jersey, confirmed yesterday that Mr. Worrell was now "potentially a prime suspect" in two unsolved 1993 sexual assault cases there.

Douglas F. Gansler, the Montgomery County state's attorney, recalled the "great concern, paralysis and fear" generated by the Silver Spring rapes years ago. "When you say 'Silver Spring rapist' around here, it's like saying 'Green River killer' or 'Boston Strangler' in other places," he said.

In the 1970's, Mr. Worrell was tried in two rapes, one in Manhattan and one in Queens. In the Manhattan case, a 25-year-old woman was raped on June 26, 1973, by a man who climbed at dawn through the window of her apartment in Chelsea. Cut marks on her neck showed that he had held a knife to her throat. Neighbors heard her scream.

The police, summoned by the neighbors, chased Mr. Worrell from the victim's building and arrested him. But the prosecutors lacked evidence, and the trial, in November 1975, resulted in a hung jury.

While he was out on bail during the Manhattan trial, he tried to rape a woman in Queens and she was shot during the attack, Mr. Morgenthau said yesterday. Mr. Worrell was convicted in 1975 of attempted murder and attempted rape. But the conviction was reversed on appeal because part of Mr. Worrell's statement to the police had been improperly admitted, the district attorney said.

Mr. Worrell had entered a guilty plea in the Manhattan rape after his conviction in Queens. But he later withdrew that plea after the Queens verdict collapsed. Released on bail in 1978, he dropped out of sight, Mr. Morgenthau said.

Michael F. Rubin, a lawyer who is representing Mr. Worrell in the New York rape cases, said, "My client has always maintained his innocence." Mr. Rubin said he learned only yesterday of the Silver Spring allegations.

Mr. Rubin said his client, who taught himself Arabic and took the Muslim name Umar Abdul Hakeem, had never tried to hide from the authorities. For a decade after 1993, Mr. Worrell worked in Cairo as a translator, Mr. Rubin said.

He had opened bank accounts and utilities contracts under the name Anderson Worrell in Atlanta, where he was living when he was arrested, Mr. Rubin said. "He was a well-respected member of the Muslim community," the lawyer said. "This is not fugitive behavior."

Mr. Rubin said Mr. Worrell had been arrested once since he left New York, on a 1977 burglary charge in Washington.

He was committed to a psychiatric hospital after it was determined that he was not competent to stand trial because of a personality disorder, the lawyer said.

Mr. Rubin said that Mr. Worrell, who is divorced and has two grown children, tried to buy a shotgun in DeKalb County in Georgia by presenting his given name and Social Security number.

"He did not ever believe that he was the subject of those New York warrants," Mr. Rubin said.

Mr. Morgenthau said the victim of the Manhattan rape, who no longer lives in New York, is still available to testify in a new trial.

The victim, when told of the DNA matches identifying the man she knew as Clarence Williams, "was, number one, upset, but I think she was also extremely grateful," Mr. Morgenthau said.

Mr. Worrell was taken to New York in October 2004 and is currently being held without bail on Rikers Island. He heard of the new evidence against him in State Supreme Court in Manhattan yesterday. At the hearing, prosecutors requested court authorization to take new DNA samples from Mr. Worrell, Mr. Rubin said.

Lt. Philip Raum, of the Police Department in Montgomery County, who was one of the two chief investigators of the Silver Spring rapes, said yesterday that at least nine assaults had been linked through DNA to Mr. Worrell, known there as Clarence Williams. The Silver Spring cases involve 21 unsolved assaults and attempted assaults.

In a telephone interview, Lieutenant Raum said he had called the victims, and five had readily agreed to testify at a trial. He said Montgomery County police would issue a search warrant to obtain more DNA from Mr. Worrell in a few days.

He said officers had located two addresses in Silver Spring and another in Washington where Mr. Worrell lived.

From 1987, when the rapes began, to 1991, when they stopped, dozens of investigators were on the trail of the Silver Spring rapist, who broke in to single-family homes and apartments at night and assaulted women.

"We felt confident that this guy would make a mistake and we would get him," Lieutenant Raum said. "Too bad it wasn't 14 years ago."

Elizabeth Olson contributed reporting from Maryland for this article.

Source Information:
New York Times
blogrunner: After 32 Years, Clothing Yields a DNA Key to Dozens of Rapes

Link:
http://annotatedtimes.blogrunner.com/snapshot/D/4/5/426F101A0D074F5D/
 
Fletcher Anderson Worrell
Added 04/29/2005 - ... Fletcher Anderson Worrell, seen here in a mug shot taken by the NYPD in 1973 after they arrested him on rape charges. Worrell was tried in 1975 on the rape charges, and convicted, but an appeals court threw out the conviction on a technicality. He was supposed to be re-tried, but ran instead, spending 30 years as a fugitive. In 2004, Worrell applied for a permit to buy a shotgun, and a background check turned up his fugitive status. Cops checked the old file and found DNA evidence that linked Worrell to the rape (he also confessed back in 1973, but a judge threw that out, too). Cops also suspect him being linked to at least 20 other rapes from around the same time in 3 different states. Looks like he's going away to the slammer for a long, long time...

Source Information:
Mugshots.com - Biggest Directory of Mug shots on the internet

Link:
http://www.mugshots.com/Criminal/Sex%20Offenders/Fletcher+Anderson+Worrell.htm
 
This would appear to have been handed to Montgomery County police and prosecutors on a silver platter. Yet no word as to trial date or conviction... Anybody hear anything about this lately?
 
Still wondering what Montgomery County Maryland prosecutors are going to do with this. It has been five years since the guy was convicted and sentenced in New York.

This is the Silver Spring Rapist. DNA evidence has linked him to nine sexual assualts in Montgomery County. Any word on extradition to Maryland to face charges?
 
Still wondering what Montgomery County Maryland prosecutors are going to do with this. It has been five years since the guy was convicted and sentenced in New York.

This is the Silver Spring Rapist. DNA evidence has linked him to nine sexual assualts in Montgomery County. Any word on extradition to Maryland to face charges?

Going on six years now...
 
Doubt it, but could he be connected to at least some of the rash of murders and disappearances of young women in D.C.'s surroundings in the early-to-mid '70s?
 
On 02/23/2011 the Montgomery County states attorneys office entered a nolle prosequi in nine counts of rape against Fletcher Worrell. There must have been problems with the victims.
 
Md. rapist gets life sentence
By Dan Morse | October 18, 2010

Fletcher Worrell, a 63-year-old dubbed the Silver Spring Rapist, was sentenced to life in prison Friday for a rape that occurred in 1991.

"He changed his victims' lives forever, said John McCarthy, Montgomery County's chief prosecutor, on Monday.

In the 1991 case, the victim still doesn't sleep with her window open, McCarthy said. Nearly 20 years ago, Worrell slipped into her house while her husband was out of town, McCarthy said. The woman's child was sleeping in the bed next to her. Worrell told the woman he would slit her child's throat if she didn't submit to him.

"That's about as bad as it gets," McCarthy said.

The case came about after a DNA match to Worrell was made while he was imprisoned for a different offense in New York, according to prosecutors. Worrell could be responsible for as many as 20 rapes in the Silver Spring area in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to prosecutors.

Worrell still has more prison time to serve in New York. The recent life sentence, handed in Rockville by Circuit Judge Eric Johnson, will begin after the end of the sentences Worrell already is serving.

"Our objective in this was to make sure the guy died in jail," McCarthy.

In the latest trial in Montgomery, a jury convicted Worrell on Sept. 28. McCarthy said his office may try Worrell on another long-ago Montgomery rape to ensure his incarceration in case the recent conviction were to get overturned on appeal.

LINK:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/crime-scene/montgomery/rapist-who-struck-in-1991-rece.html
 
A man of many names and many offenses. The following was taken from a New York Court of Appeals denial of an appeal by Fletcher Worrell. It gives a good deal of information about his crimes, aliases, and travels.

Perhaps a study of this time line might help to solve other crimes in locations that he was present in at the time.

It is a sad commentary on how he could have been taken out of circulation at least as far back as 1974, but continued to commit crimes for the next 30 years. Meanwhile how many rapes and possible murders did he commit?

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(Quote) Defendant has a history of being arrested under different names.   For instance, on August 12, 1972, he was arrested for possession of burglar's tools while on a fire escape, and gave his name as Anderson Worrell, with a date of birth of December 30, 1946, and an address of 180 Saratoga Avenue in Kings County.   When he was arrested for the rape in this case in June 1973, he told police that his name was Clarence Williams, that he was born on November 10, 1945, and that he lived at 432 East 10th Street.  
He also claimed that he did not have a criminal history.

On September 25, 1974, while awaiting trial on this case, defendant was arrested in Queens County for an attempted murder and rape that had occurred on July 18, 1974.   When arrested in Queens, defendant gave his name as Anderson Worrell, his date of birth as December 30, 1946, and his residence as 1974 Montau or Montauk Street in Kings County, and his prior residence as 326 Riverside Drive in Manhattan.  
He claimed that he had a wife named Rasheda Worrell who lived in the Bronx.

Defendant was tried in this case as Clarence Williams in November 1974.   The jury, however, could not reach a verdict, and a mistrial was declared.

On October 31, 1975 defendant, as Anderson Worrell, was convicted in Queens County of attempted murder and rape, and sentenced to a term of 10 years.   On November 18, 1975, he pleaded guilty in this case, with the understanding that he could seek to have his plea vacated if his conviction in Queens were reversed on appeal.   Defendant was sentenced to a term of 10 years, which was to run concurrently with the term imposed on the Queens County conviction.

In 1976 the Second Department reversed defendant's conviction in Queens County (People v. Worrell, 54 A.D.2d 768 [1976] ).   On January 14, 1977, his plea in this case was consequently vacated.   On January 28, 1977, an individual identified as Rasheeda Abdul Hakeem posted cash bail for defendant, and gave a Washington, D.C. post office box as her address.

During 1977, this case was adjourned about a dozen times, with at least nine adjournments marked “ex,” meaning either that the time was excludable or that defendant was excused, since during that period, defendant's attorney was preparing, and the court was considering, his suppression motion, which had been made on August 10, 1977.

On September 25, 1977, defendant was arrested in Washington, D.C., and gave his name as Hakim Abdul Umar. While this arrest now appears on defendant's consolidated NYSID report, the New York County prosecutor handling the case at that time was unaware that defendant was in Washington, D.C., and the People's file contained no information on defendant's whereabouts.

On October 5, 1977, defendant failed to appear in the Queens County case.   A warrant was issued for his arrest, and bail was forfeited.   After several adjournments of this case in New York County, defendant's bail was forfeited on February 15, 1978, and a bench warrant was issued.   Defendant then vanished, insofar as the New York court system was concerned, for 26 years.

He was eventually returned to New York in 2004 on the 1978 New York County warrant.   In his motion in New York County in which he claimed that his right to a speedy trial had been impaired, defendant submitted an affirmation from Michael Keesee, his attorney in the Queens County prosecution, which had been submitted in support of a motion in Queens County in which defendant sought to vacate the Queens bail forfeiture.   Keesee stated that after defendant's arrest in Washington, D.C., in 1977, he had been found unfit to proceed and was committed to St. Elizabeth's Hospital on March 9, 1978.   On October 10, 1978, the court in Queens County denied the motion, finding insufficient evidence that defendant's “alleged incarceration in Washington, D.C.” had prevented his appearance in Queens, and further noting that even if it were to find the affidavit and order of commitment credible, they only established defendant's whereabouts on the March 1978 committal date, and failed to explain why he did not appear in Queens in 1977.

In his speedy trial motion in this case, defendant himself offered an affidavit, which he signed “Fletcher Anderson Worrell,” in which he asserted that he had been involuntarily committed at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C., from 1978 until 1981, although hospital records offered by the People in opposition to the motion established that no individual by the name of Fletcher Anderson Worrell had been treated at the hospital during that period.   DNA evidence offered by the People established that defendant had committed nine rapes in Maryland between 1987 and 1991, and two more in New Jersey in 1993.

Other evidence established that on August 19, 1993, defendant had been issued a passport in the name of Fletcher Anderson Worrell.   According to defendant, he relocated to Egypt from 1993 until he returned to the United States on August 28, 2003.   On September 9, 2003, defendant obtained a birth registration card in the name Fletcher Anderson Worrell, with a birth date of December 30, 1946.   A few months later, defendant obtained a Georgia driver's license and a health insurance card using that same name.

In an application to purchase a gun, dated May 21, 2004, defendant provided a different social security number than he had given previously, and claimed that he was not under indictment, not a fugitive, and had never been committed to a mental institution.   When he provided his fingerprints, however, the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services determined that defendant had two different prior NYSID numbers.   The new consolidated report under a new NYSID number listed his former names as Fletcher Worrell, Anderson Worrell, Umar Abdul Hakeem, Clarance Williams and Clarence Williams;  with two different dates of birthhttps://caselaw.findlaw.com/ny-supreme-court-appellate-division/1540616.html, three different social security numbers, and two reported places of birth.   He was returned to New York on the outstanding New York warrant in October 2004.

Defendant moved to dismiss the indictment on statutory and constitutional speedy grounds.   The motion was denied in an order dated October 31, 2005... (Unquote)

LINK:

FindLaw's New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division case and opinions.
 
I'm curious about where in Queens the attempted rape/murder on July 18, 1974 was. Did he break into that woman's apartment like the attempted rape he tried in Manhattan on August 12, 1972?

A month after that attempted rape/murder in Queens Leslie Sue Zaret was raped and murdered also in Queens on August 16th 1974. wonder if they could be connected. he wasn't caught for the July rape until September meaning he was out and about during the time of Leslie's rape and murder. Just a thought...
 
in trying to find an address for Worrell I googled his wife's name. The only thing I found was her name on a list of people that received a donation from the philanthropists Carol Bernstein Ferry and W.H. Ping Ferry.

According to this list a Rasheeda Abdul Hakeem received money from Bernstein Ferry in 1976-1979. According to this link as well as the wiki page for Carol Bernstein Ferry "Carol Bernstein Ferry and the late W. H. (Ping) Ferry were social change philanthropists who gave away a substantial part of their personal wealth to progressive social change groups, activities, and activists concentrating generally in the areas of war, racism, poverty, and injustice"

Rasheeda Abdul Hakeem was able to post bond for Worrell in January 1977. I wonder if the money Rasheeda received from Carol Bernstein Ferry and W.H Ping Ferry had anything to do with Worrell's case. sad to think an organization that was meant to help good people would have any involvement in aiding someone like Worrell. But in reading about the charity they weren't very organized or picky about how they gave money away, often times giving to individuals in cash payment.

Carol Bernstein Ferry and W. H. Ferry Papers, 1971-1997 | University Library (iupui.edu)
 

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