Accused East Coast Rapist Faces More Charges In Md.
PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. (WJZ) -- He's already serving five life sentences but now the man known as the East Coast rapist faces more charges here in Maryland, where officials believe his violent crime wave began.
Meghan McCorkell has more on the latest indictment.
Aaron Thomas, 41, has been indicted on 54 counts for raping and kidnapping six women in Prince George's County.
He was hunted by police for more than a decade. Now the man known as the East Coast rapist faces more charges.
Tuesday, Prince George's County prosecutors indicted Thomas in attacks on six women between 1997 and 2001. Through DNA, investigators have linked him to 13 attacks in Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Virginia. His first assaults were in Prince George's County, where he lived as a teenager.
Thomas was captured after police plastered sketches of him on billboards up and down the East Coast.
"Ultimately, the billboard--the media campaign--led to a detailed tip to help to crack this case," FBI agent Ronald Hosko said in March 2011, after the capture.
Thomas is already serving two life sentences for rape in Loudoun County, Va.
Earlier this month, he received three more life sentences for attacking two Virginia teenagers in 2009.
One of the victims' mothers spoke out.
"He showed no mercy to the girls and so he deserved every day of the three life terms that he received," she said.
In a chilling interview with the Washington Post, Thomas admits to attacking women up and down the East Coast for more than a decade, saying, "I felt like an animal. I didn't care. It's awful. I don't know why I couldn't stop."
Even though Thomas will already spend life behind bars, prosecutors in Prince George's County decided to bring charges so that victims in Maryland could have justice and closure.
Thomas will be arraigned in Prince George's County on April 12.
