After a two-week search, police last night arrested a second suspect in connection with the Sept. 2 kidnapping and assault of two University students.
The suspect, a 15-year-old black man, has been charged in the crime and is being detained at the Durham County Youth Home on Broad St., said Capt. C.F. Birkhead of Public Safety. Because he is a juvenile, police could not release his name or any information about him.
At approximately 10:30 p.m. last night, a Durham County police officer was on patrol in the downtown area when he spotted the suspect, who was wanted by police both in connection to the kidnapping case and an unrelated case about which Birkhead could give no details.
The officer apprehended the suspect without being forced to give chase, Birkhead said. The suspect is likely to be arraigned today in juvenile court in Durham.
On Sept. 5, police arrested the first suspect in the case, Markey Wilson, of 417 Lakeland St. Wilson, who is believed to be between the ages of 16 and 26, is currently being held in a Durham County jail on $500,000 bond. He was arrested after leading police on a chase that ended in a three-car collision. At the scene of the accident, police found a .357 Magnum and a bag of marijuana in Wilson's blue Chevrolet Malibu.
The assault began about 2 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 2, when the two victims, one male and one female University student, were threatened at gunpoint by two assailants as the victims were walking to their car in the Georgetown Manor apartment complex, located four blocks from East Campus.
During the next several hours, the kidnappers beat the male student and raped the female student twice. After leaving the male student for dead in a remote area outside the city limits, the kidnappers drove the woman to a local Central Carolina Bank, forced her to withdraw $300 from an automatic teller machine and fled in the students' car.
The students were treated at Duke Hospital over the weekend. The woman was treated and released on that Saturday, and the man was admitted Saturday and released Sept. 5.
The Sept. 2 abduction marked the first of two such incidents near campus. On Sept. 13, three University employees were abducted and assaulted in Duke Forest. Donald Clarke-Pearson, 19, of 105 Porter Place in Chapel Hill, has been arrested and charged in the case.
He was released from jail after posting a $175,000 bond, and is currently living under house arrest. Police suspect no connection between the two cases.
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