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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrel Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Okay, first things first. I am wearing our exclusive Halloween Murder With My Husband merch. Right now, I even am using our blankets.
Which is so cool. I know if you're listening through your headphones, you probably can't see the blanket right now. But everyone on YouTube can. If you haven't seen it, you need to go check it out. I'm wearing the matching sweatpants. I'm wearing a full murder with my husband tracksuit right now, which is the coolest thing ever. Peyton's going for a run after this.
In my murder with my husband track. No one will mess with me. No one will mess with me. That's a good point. That's a good point. We're going to have links everywhere. If you're listening on podcasts in the description, YouTube in the description, and it's on our Instagram, on our website, everywhere. Just click the link and it'll take you to where you can buy merch.
Kind of speaking of housekeeping, I actually did want to give a little rundown to everyone about our Apple subscriptions. It's so cool. You can get the same exact bonus episodes that you get through our Patreon, but it's right there on Apple. If you listen on Apple Podcasts, one click of a button, you get...
add free listening bonus episodes so check it out if you haven't already okay it's time for your 10 seconds and i think we've done a lot since we last recorded your 10 seconds yes we have done a lot so i'll try not to make this long if you want to skip me and get to the story you can but that will make me a little sad all right first things first we were in vegas um last weekend just for a pickleball tournament
Didn't win. It's okay. It happens. You did good. Can't win them all, but it was fun. We had a good time. It's just fun to go out there, play some pickleball, eat some good food. We had an Airbnb and Peyton's family came out too. We kind of just hung out by the pool. And so that was a good time. On our way there, we were driving. And I usually drive the speed limit, of course, every single time I'm driving. So we're driving and there was this car in front of me that looked a little suspicious. Well, no, no. Garrett comes...
Flying up on this car in front of him. Okay, I came flying up the speed limit on this car behind me. Or on this car in front of me. And this car looked a little suspicious. It was a Tahoe, but it was like an older Tahoe. And it didn't look like it was a cop car, but I just had a weird feeling. So I started backing off and then pulled over. And the car behind me came flying up. And boom, that car flashed its lights. And it was an undercover cop car.
And so no one knew it was a cop, but the cop wasn't pulling anyone over. It was just flashing its lights so no one would pass him. So it's just piling up behind him. Anytime someone gets ghost...
is speeding past him he turns on his lights but won't pull anyone over so peyton and i for like an hour and a half it was great entertainment we just played this game of we gotta watch people speed up trying to pass the cop car and he would just flick his lights on and everyone instantly break and pull over and you just know their stomach drops like we would just be like oh this guy's the next victor here he goes you know it sounds way
It sounds kind of lame explaining it, but I promise it was way more fun when we were driving. Last but not least, we ate at this place in Vegas called Honey Salt. Was it Honey Salt? Honey and Salt. Honey and Salt. Something like that. It was pretty good. Hopefully next time we go, we can go to this sushi place that some people recommended. I'm a big sushi fan. Maybe not so much, but... But I'll go. But she'll go still and watch me eat sushi. Mm-hmm.
I think that's what I have for everyone this week. No shoe updates, no clothes updates. We've been too busy. And it's going to be winter soon, so no lawn update. But let's see what else we got going next week. Before we jump into it, I just want to reiterate that the Chargers are going to win the Super Bowl this season. And on that note, let's hop right into it.
Way to put it out there. Thanks, babe. Our case sources are abcnews.go.com, cbsnews, nbcnews.com, wjla.com, foxnews.com, washingtonpost.com, the New Haven Register, insidenova.com, police1.com, patch.com, and criminaldiscoursepodcast.com. Before we jump into the episode, I do want to tell everyone that we are going to be discussing sexual assault in
and rape today pretty heavily. Not detailed, but just a lot of instances. So I just wanted to give a warning for everyone. So Garrett and I had a goal at the beginning of starting this podcast to someday be able to see our logo up on a billboard.
I know it seems weird, but it was a goal we had. And I just want to tell you guys that we were able to accomplish that. We've had some messages. It's small. It might seem like a silly goal, but seeing murder with my husband on a billboard in our local area was such a cool moment for us. And I know you guys would want to be involved in that too, because it's because of you guys that we were able to get there.
Now, not to harp on billboards even more, but we've seen billboards used as a tool in true crime to spread awareness on cases. From families all the way to police, they have been used to aid in investigations before, and today we are going to cover a case that was
that was solved because of a billboard. So our next Halloween episode begins in 2009. And as you guys know, it's October 31st, the night of Halloween. We are in Dale City, Virginia, and kids all around have put on their costumes and begin excitedly running through their neighborhoods searching for the best candy. And we're going to be talking about
Halloween night kind of has a different look depending on your age. Anyone under the ages of 12 to 13 spend the early hours of the night trick-or-treating in costume with their parents, and then they go home, sift through their loot, and go to bed. Adults without children tend to go out to Halloween costume parties. It's a night that gives an excuse to go out and celebrate.
My favorite places to trick-or-treat were the elderly houses because they were the sweetest and most interested in your costume. They love handing out candy. And then you have the teenagers on Halloween night. They do trick-or-treat, but not before 9 p.m. They might not dress up because that's for babies. And honestly, they might not even say thank you as they walk off your porch with candy. But they do mean well, even if they leave a smashed pumpkin as evidence of their coolness. But
But this Halloween night, three teenage girls are not like the other teenagers I just described. They are sweet, kind, good friends, and just have decided to spend the night together going house to house to trick or treat.
They are around ages 16 to 17 and really are enjoying their Halloween night. So as the night goes on in Virginia back in 2009, Halloween becomes a little more spooky. It begins to storm outside, getting cold and rainy. These three girls decide to cut through a shopping center parking lot in the dark. They're heading home. And as the three of them are walking, someone comes up from behind them in the pitch black.
The girls turn around surprised and scared, growing even more tense when they realize the unknown person is a man and his face is concealed. All they could see was his eyes. He either has a ski mask on or his hoodie is pulled tight around his face.
Hmm. Hmm.
And I think this is something that, you know, all women can kind of somewhat relate to. I have never walked through a dark parking lot and not been scared that something bad could happen, holding my keys in between my fingers. And now it's happening to these girls. It's a brutal and sad reality that we face in society.
And even though there is three of them, it's no match for a man with a gun. I mean, it's just too hard. So after holding the girls at his mercy, the man forces all of them through the dark and empty parking lot and into a heavily wooded ravine behind the shopping center. Okay, so I'm trying to figure out real quick. They are walking home, but they're walking through like, were they not trick-or-treating in their own neighborhood? Yeah.
I don't think so. Again, a very teenager thing to do to go to a different neighborhood. I feel like I stayed in my neighborhood like my entire life growing up. Right. Either way, most sources just said they were cutting through this parking lot to get to their next place. So it probably was just a shortcut, you know, and they were they were just hanging out. There was no parents with them.
So at this point, we know this man did not just force these girls into the woods for anything but awful reasons. So one by one, the man began sexually assaulting each girl in this wooded area behind the parking lot. Now, I don't really want to say luckily or thankfully here, but one of the young girls actually had a cell phone with her at this time.
Again, it's not like now where most 16 or 17 year olds carry around cell phones. So I'm assuming that's why this attacker didn't even check or pay attention for it. But one of the three girls does have a cell phone. And while one of her friends was being attacked, this young girl pulled her cell phone out and began sneakily texting her mother for help. Oh, wow.
Now imagine receiving this text as a mother. Your teenage daughter was out trick-or-treating with two of her best friends when all of the sudden she texts you that her friends are being raped behind a certain shopping center in town and they need help. This makes me sick. Right. After texting her mother, the young girl dialed 911 without the attacker noticing, which ended up stopping the attack because they responded promptly.
In the middle of the attack down in the ravine, the girls and attacker suddenly heard footsteps nearby.
This attacker suddenly and frantically jumped up and began running straight into the woods away from the footsteps that were coming from the local police searching for the girls who were getting attacked. And somehow by the time they found the scared and extremely violated teens, the man was in the wind. They searched and searched, but police were unable to catch him. And although these attacks were devastating, confusing and felt all around town, the
This was not the first time it had happened, not even the second or third attack, because unbeknownst to the girls, beginning in 1997, 12 years earlier, a series of rapes plagued the eastern seaboard starting in Maryland.
DNA would eventually link at least 13 sexual assaults to one rapist who would become known as the East Coast Rapist. And he just raped? He never killed? He never killed. Okay. And this rapist had just struck again attacking these three teenage girls on Halloween night in 2009. And because he escaped from police by the skin of his teeth that night,
his reign of terror would actually go on for two more years, successfully evading police and continuing to assault girls and women across the East Coast. Super cocky that even though he's almost been caught, he's still doing this over and over and over again. Yeah. So as we just discussed, our story actually begins clear back in 1997. The
The many known attacks of the East Coast rapist began in Maryland. The rapist then attacked in Virginia, then Connecticut, Rhode Island, and then back to Virginia. The sexual assaults all took place at night and generally occurred near major highways.
Many of the crimes were committed outdoors. The East Coast rapist M.O. was to approach women on foot or on bicycle. When they were outside, he'd threaten them with a weapon such as a gun, a knife, a screwdriver. He'd often conceal his face with a mask or a hood. The girls or women who were attacked were just going about their usual business when these attacks happened. They were trick-or-treating or moving out of an apartment or waiting for a bus or taking care of their baby.
but the first reported attack happened on February 19th, 1997. A woman in Forestville, Maryland was sexually assaulted at about 1245 AM. Her attacker came up on a bike, then threatened her with what looked like a gun and forced her into the woods. He then fled the scene on the 10 speed bike.
According to CBS news.com, seven months later, the rapist struck again. He attacked a Maryland woman behind a restaurant garbage bin. In 1998, the rapist attacked a 16 year old girl in Maryland. This will later be linked to all of the other rapes by DNA. The rapist was also attacked by a woman behind a restaurant garbage bin.
Two years later, in July of 2000, the rapist attacked and raped a woman in Hyattsville, Maryland. Again, this one is linked through DNA. Did he have an M.O.? Younger girls? Older women? Middle-aged women? Or is it just all over the place? Never, you know, older than 50. A broad range from teenage to... So not really then? Yeah. Okay. And I also, I mean, think...
how risky that is to be raping all of these women outside, not under a roof in the, like the, you know, even the privacy of their own homes or his home. I just think that is so risky. How's he not been caught? So, like I just said, there was a two year break and it makes you wonder whether this break is,
whether there were more unreported rapes or failed attempts that happened during this time or why take a two-year break. Another assault occurred in November 2000, which happened along Interstate 395. On May 24th, 2001, a woman in Leesburg, Virginia named Tracy Saunders was moving out of her apartment. A man abducted her, tied her up with rope and raped her in her empty apartment using a screwdriver as a weapon to threaten her. Oh my gosh.
The man then stole Saunders' clothes and left her there naked. Saunders was afraid that she'd never see her kids again during this rape. Three more years would go by before the next attack. Again, this makes you wonder, did he get caught for something else and go to jail for a bit? Was he just unsuccessful? Why three years? And at this point, police have still not linked these rapes.
In 2006 in Rhode Island, a girl was doing her homework when she saw a man peeping on her. She screamed and scared him off. Apparently, this is linked to the East Coast rapist, so it was a failed attempt that was reported. On January 10, 2007, the East Coast rapist struck in New Haven, Connecticut.
a 27-year-old woman was sexually assaulted in her home. So this will be the first assault that happens inside of a victim's home. The rapist had actually saw her earlier that night, then later entered her apartment through an open window while the woman was sleeping. He threatened to kill the woman's sleeping baby that was nearby, put a pillowcase over her face, then assaulted her. Afterward, he scolded the woman for leaving her windows unlocked with a baby sleeping inside. ♪
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It was after this attack in 2007 that again, two more years would go by and we find ourselves in 2009 in Dell City, Virginia, where the three teenage girls get abducted from the parking lot and attacked in the ravine. I don't understand. I mean, I'm glad he hasn't, but I don't understand why he hasn't
killed anyone yet? Well, I think he's just a sexual predator, not a murderer. Totally. I just feel like raping that many people or sexually assaulting that many people. I mean, I know murder's another step, but it's a lot of people. Right. A ton. It's a ton. So I just, I don't want to say it's like blurring the lines, but kind of at this point, like what you're doing is horrible. A serial rapist. Correct. And not
you know, a serial rapist who's raping women in his immediate life is attacking random women on the street. According to CBS news, those attacks on Halloween night received a bunch of attention in media. And because of this DNA connected these attacks to the others and investigators began to develop theories and we'll spend years eliminating hundreds of potential suspects.
The East Coast Rapist is nicknamed and publicized after these attacks. On March 16th, 2010, a Washington Post article comes out about how police are still hunting for the East Coast Rapist. The article discusses how the attacks have been happening for years, beginning in Maryland, Virginia, moving up to New England, and then returning to Northern Virginia. It mentioned that the police could link all of these crimes by DNA. And this is 2009. Yeah. I feel like,
Why are you leaving so much DNA at the crime scenes? That is, I mean, we are pretty advanced. I mean, we're not 2019 advanced, but still. There was a quote that came out from police at this point that said, somebody's going to know who's been in Prince George's, who's been in Fairfax, who went to Connecticut. The bastard's right there. We just need that one phone call. Somebody knows this guy.
After the Halloween rapes, investigators turned to a relatively new, highly detailed police database that includes everything from traffic tickets to arrests, all indexed by time and location. They played around with the search parameters, adjusting the height and weight of the hypothetical suspect. They also set up a website seeking tips and put up electronic billboards with sketches of the suspect.
The police set up a database called eastcoastrapist.com and this generated 44,000 hits in the first 12 hours. Investigators said they have investigated and cleared more than 700 suspects at this point.
In late February 2011, police roll out a new website and electronic billboard adds a long Interstate 95 in a continuing effort to catch the rapist. This is two years after those girls were attacked on Halloween. These billboards are placed in states where the attacks took place, plus in neighboring states. Then finally, the police efforts pay off, and this case is solved because of one of those electronic billboards.
Interesting.
And the reason police believe this tipster is because of the added detail about the rapist getting away on a bike during that attack. That detail from the victim was never released to the public.
The man that this tipster claims has bragged about the attack is named Aaron Thomas, and he has quite the history. Aaron Thomas was born in August, 1971 to Donald B. Thomas and Shirley Thomas. And he grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC. And this is the guy who they're suspecting to be the East Coast rapist. - Okay. - His parents were both working parents and Thomas's father was actually a police officer in Washington, DC.
Now, there are many accounts that Thomas was abused badly by his father at home. Specifics include accounts that his father, known as Big Don, would throw Thomas against walls and beat him with his thick police belt. Thomas actually had two half-siblings, a half-brother and a half-sister, but he was Big Don's only biological son. According to the Washington Post, quote,
When we were both small, my father was a strict disciplinarian. Very strict, said Thomas's older brother. You didn't do anything out of sort or it was hell to pay. When we started to fight back in our own way, problems started. With Aaron, his brother, it seemed to go way down a rabbit hole. It went further.
And despite the fact that it seems Thomas received it worse, his mother and half brother later described Thomas's behavior growing up as volatile, unpredictable, and he was always in trouble. According to his mother, Shirley, he started acting out as early as first grade. Thomas once beat another elementary school student with the chain from a playground swing. What? In elementary school? That's insane. Earning him a suspension from the Suitland School.
Thomas pulled dangerous pranks such as super gluing his brother's hands to his bed or slipping him sleeping pills to find out what would happen. Holy crap, this kid's nuts. He once lit a firework indoors at a relative's home on the 4th of July, starting a fire inside of the home. Quote, he also nearly drowned the family's dog.
Thomas spent time as a teenager in alternative schools and psychiatric facilities because of his behavior. His first three years of high school were spent at Edgemead Treatment Center in Maryland. At that point, Thomas wasn't allowed to return to his regular high school because of his behavioral problems. So he was commuting to Edgemead, which was 40 minutes one way by bus from Fort Washington, Maryland, where his family was currently living.
Thomas was finally allowed to leave the program and did his final year of high school at Friendly High School in Friendly, Maryland, graduating in June 1990. Now in 1991, when Thomas turned 20, Big Don retired from the police force.
Big Don was embarrassed by Thomas's behavioral troubles and problems with the law. And because of this, he had kind of cut himself off from his son and in the public eye. His mother was actually the one who handed all of Thomas's run-ins with the law. You would think if Aaron Thomas was getting arrested, his...
police officer father would be the one to go handle this but he was too embarrassed so he would make his wife go handle it okay quote those close to the family recalled donald thomas telling people that he thought his son would turn out to be like his brother his own brother who at the time was serving a lengthy prison sentence for murder in connecticut
Geez.
high in the city. So apparently Thomas was hit badly, collapsed and nearly bled to death. And according to sources, he was deeply affected by the shooting. He almost bled to death in his butt? Yeah, from being shot in his butt. Wow.
In his early 20s, Thomas was kicked out of his parents' home in Fort Washington, and he ended up homeless. He had no job, he had no money, and he's been shot in the butt and almost died. He was arrested for cocaine possession three times and was put on probation for these offenses. And soon after this, the East Coast rapist would begin raping.
So based on the anonymous tip, the police do extensive investigation into Thomas and they learn everything we just talked about. They also discover he was already on their large potential list of suspects. So they already had his name. It was just, where do they start? Police follow Thomas around waiting for a chance to get his DNA. He's in Connecticut at this point in 2011.
As police and U.S. Marshals observed him, they noted he appeared paranoid, he took odd routes to and from home, and he was constantly watching his back. Do you think he knew that someone was watching him? I do. Or was he always like that? I do think he knew someone was watching him, and we'll get to that a little later in the story. Okay.
So police actually get their chance to collect his DNA secretly when Thomas throws out a cigarette butt. Now we've seen this before. It seems like they're always getting caught with cigarettes. The ironic part of this is that the butt was actually collected right outside of the courthouse because Thomas was appearing in court on a criminal charge, having been charged with larceny for stealing a bike.
They get Thomas's DNA from the saliva off the cigarette butt and they quickly get a match. It's so ironic. The Connecticut State Police Forensic Lab confirmed with DNA that Aaron Thomas is the East Coast rapist who has 13 DNA matches to rapes all along the East Coast. And there's probably way more.
So just four days after getting the tip about Thomas on March 4th, 2011, Thomas is arrested in new Haven based on the DNA match to him as the East coast rapist. He is now 39 years old, which isn't that old. It's not that old.
Quote, as Thomas stepped off a bus near his home, law enforcement swarmed him. He knew immediately what was going on and asked them, what took you guys so long to get me? No, he did not. So he just basically immediately confessed. Like he knew what was going on and didn't even try to dance. Just so weird he would just confess like that. Well, they have his DNA. I mean, it's so hard to argue 13 DNA matches. Yeah.
The police began conducting lengthy interviews with Thomas on the day of his arrest. Apparently, there's a 255-page transcript of these interviews. Thomas immediately confessed that he was the East Coast rapist and described how it all began. So back in the early 90s, Thomas was homeless in Prince George's County, Maryland, when he admits to starting his serial rapes.
In a crime that was never reported, he confessed to raping a sex worker back when he was homeless. He said he got, quote, an urge. He scared her, got her into the woods, and raped her. This began a long pattern of attacks for him. He said he woke up the next morning feeling ashamed and disgusted with himself, feelings that he would go on to say he would experience with every attack. Do you think that's true? I mean, I do. I think that's definitely possible that after he would attack someone, he would...
feel bad about it or even feel remorse but it didn't stop him from doing it it obviously wasn't bad enough to stop the attacks interesting i get maybe feeling remorse or bad about hey i lied about this or hey i lied about that but raping someone he's feeling bad yet he's doing it over and over again
I find it hard to believe him. Right. Well, and it's also just like rape is so violating and bad. That's what I mean. It's not like he lied about something like, oh, I. Right. It's just kind of like, well, if you felt that bad. Then you wouldn't have done it.
13 more for sure times. And again, rape. It's not like he said, oh, I went to the grocery store, but I went somewhere else instead. You know what I'm saying? Right, right. So Thomas initially targeted sex workers, which may be why these early crimes were never reported. So there's probably way more out there. But eventually in the middle of this, Thomas somehow got his commercial driver's license and got a job as a truck driver. Despite the fact that he now had an income, the urge to continue to rape did not stop.
quote from him, "I just went to a woman, I scared her and she gave me sex." Thomas said this according to the transcript with police. He said he would use intimidation, fake weapons and threatened to subdue his victims.
Thomas described walking the streets, noticing locations that would be good for an attack, scouting escape routes, and taking advantage of, quote, an opportunity when a woman would come along. He said he would jump out and take the woman from the sidewalk to the woods, a description that matches many given by the victims of his known attacks. So his line of attacks are also matching up with his victim's line of attacks. Okay.
In the summer of 1994, apparently after he'd already started raping women, Thomas saw a woman named Jewel Hicks while he was driving a truck and they began a relationship.
Hicks already had a baby boy and Thomas acted like a father to him. Thomas told police that there were times when he stopped raping, particularly when his life was going better, such as when he had a job, a relationship, a stable place to live, which this accounts for those two year breaks, three year breaks in between the attacks. He
He even described himself as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, that he would feel terrible afterward, but that the urge would come back and this evil side of him would take back over. According to the Washington Post, Thomas said he never actually used a firearm in any of the attacks, instead employing things that looked like guns, such as the hard plastic handle of an umbrella or a replica pistol to scare the women, but he never actually had guns.
A weapon, which to me, it's like, well, if it looks like a weapon, I would count that as a weapon. I don't know what the difference is there. And also you could still hit someone with an umbrella. Often he would back off if a woman put up a fight. He said he has no idea how many possible attacks he didn't go through with because the woman fought back.
Imagine how scary that is. How many times he actually tried. Also, it's just a very weird case. Like he wouldn't try to hurt them. He would back off if they fought. I don't know. I don't know. It's just weird. It's just 100% sexually driven. 100%. Yes. Agreed.
And Jewel Hicks, his now serious girlfriend, began to notice his dark behavior. Because although he's living a life at her house with her and taking care of her baby son, he's still raping. He's still raping women at night. She says that he'd go out at night and steal things. He was very jealous and possessive of her. There were times she almost felt like their sex life was kind of like marital rape. Quote, if you didn't give it to him, he just took it.
During these evening times that he would go out, Thomas was also committing sexual assaults. On September 28th, 2000, Thomas and Hicks were pregnant together and finally delivered their baby, but the baby died the same day.
One attempted rape in November, 2000 came less than a month after he buried his own biological son. The attack happened along interstate three 95. We talked about it earlier and it actually happened not far from the lumber company where he was working at this time. Now at this point, Hicks and Thomas weren't married, but they did act like a family and they bought a house together. And according to everyone around Thomas seemed devoted to Hicks and to her son.
Despite this, Thomas was arrested in 2001 and charged in connection with a domestic abuse incident against Hicks. According to CBS News, he smashed her into a bedroom window after he snooped through her cell phone and saw she'd been texting a male friend.
However, the two stayed together and tried to work on their relationship for years. It was after this that Thomas committed the Leesburg rape of Tracy Saunders. According to him, Thomas said the Leesburg rape occurred as he was driving home from a delivery in the area. He said he stopped his truck at a gas station, parked, bought some cigarettes, and went walking through the neighborhood where he eventually saw her.
So after this rape in Thanksgiving of 2003, the couple went to visit Thomas's parents in Virginia where they had retired. And Big Don actually pulled his son aside during this visit and told him to take care of his mother and gave him a set of keys to the house. Which all this was a strange request because the two of them barely spoke. Big Don and Thomas did not talk. Big Don implored him to make more friends and take care of himself.
And three months later on February 4th, 2004, Big Don took his own life in his garage. After Big Don died, Thomas would admonish his mother to not leave her windows unlocked,
Once Thomas appeared in an upstairs room after going outside, having climbed up and entered her house through an unlocked window and said, see, this is why you shouldn't leave your windows unlocked. Look how easily I got into your home. Hola. Como esta? Hola, como estamos? Want to learn a new language? Well, the best way is to uproot your entire life, move to Spain and live there for the rest of your life.
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Dot com code husband. CBDistillery.com code husband. Essentially, he's warning his own mother about people like him. Because at this point, he's crawled into windows and attacked women. And now he's warning his own mother. Hey, don't leave your windows unlocked. According to family, Thomas did tell people in his family that he was kind of doing awful things. But he would never go into specifics and they would never ask. I'm just trying to figure out why. Because, I mean, he was married. It's not like...
He couldn't get with any girls, and it seems like he was only doing this for, like, sexual, so I'm just...
because the rape the hurting a woman was the sexual part was the sexual pleasure it had to be rape which is probably why jewel said sometimes it seemed like he raped me because that's what he liked in 2004 thomas and hicks relationship broke they decided to break it off this was after 10 years of being together eventually thomas would move in with his cousin tara she had a large home and he was given a whole floor of it
He had trucking jobs, but always seemed to be in trouble at work, mostly because of his careless driving incidents, such as hitting a low overpass. He was one of the truckers who did that. He was a bit of a loner during this point in his life, and he spent a lot of his time working out. But eventually, Thomas met a new woman named Dorothy Golding, and they started a relationship. They had a son together and...
on July 14th, 2005. Things seemed to be going well for Thomas again. This didn't stop the destructive path his life seemed to always be on. Thomas and Dorothy would fight and Thomas would sometimes go out at night committing his crimes. So
throughout this whole time, he's continually going out and attacking women. By October 2009, things weren't going well between Thomas and Golding and he wanted a break. He returned home to Virginia and they eventually broke up. He was also still in touch with Hicks at this point and she was moving and needed help. So he went to her home and helped her move out of her apartment. It was while at his old flames apartment that Thomas noticed something. Sitting
Sitting on the mantle was a replica 9mm handgun, a fake that Hicks had bought for 10 euros while shopping. It looked real, but when you pulled the trigger, it emitted a flame. So essentially, it was a lighter that looked like a gun. Now on Halloween, Thomas grabbed the lighter and jumped into Hicks' gold Chrysler 300 sedan. He regularly borrowed her car, and Hicks just assumed he was going out to run errands.
This would be the night that he raped the teenage trick-or-treaters, using the fake gun to usher them into the ravine. So that one really looked like a gun. Really did. Claiming that there was no real planning that night, Thomas told police he forced the girls into a wooded area because it was close by. He led them down a steep slope, ordered them to line up, and then told them to lie down in the soggy leaves. Just...
this is so terrifying. The teenagers would let it later testify about how terrifying this was, believing that the gun in their backs was real and that their attacker would kill them if they tried to run. It was only after hearing all of the footsteps that Thomas realized something had gone wrong. Quote, I heard a whole lot of footsteps, so I ran.
Thomas went straight through the woods tossing the gun lighter aside and circling back to the parking lot he said he then calmly walked up to the Chrysler quote police were right beside me they were parked all around him he said I just got in the car and I backed out he drove back to Hicks's apartment and went to sleep
In the days that followed, Hicks said Thomas was paranoid. He would look out the windshield and up into the sky searching for helicopters. He was on edge. Hicks said she figured out that Thomas had taken her lighter gun and she wanted it back. After he picked her up from work one evening, she drove him to Woodbridge to where he said he left it, which was where he said he left it.
He searched the area for 45 minutes but couldn't find it and neither did police. Hicks remembers at this point Thomas acting extremely fidgety and anxious and demanding to leave back to Connecticut. The rapes were getting a lot of attention. Number one, it makes sense why he's so on edge because these are really the first of his rapes to be getting publicized. The media is talking about it. And number two, how did Hicks decide?
didn't note that the place Thomas claimed to have left her gun was also the place these three girls in their local area had been attacked. I get it. That's true. But I feel like I would do that. You wouldn't even notice. I mean, all these crimes you tell me, I haven't heard of 99% of them. Right. Maybe she didn't hear of it. Yeah, but if you're not paying attention, I...
I feel like that's possible. - And she might've heard of the three girls who were raped, but not even noted where it happened. - Yeah, exactly. - In September, 2010, Thomas is arrested for larceny in Woodbridge, Connecticut. He was set free on a $1,000 bond. So after he's committed these rapes, he's arrested and set free.
In 2011, Thomas was living in Connecticut and was apparently dating a brand new woman who lived in a nice neighborhood in New Haven. According to a neighbor, Thomas was an unemployed truck driver who spent a lot of time in the new woman's house. He had a tractor trailer that he parked in the neighborhood and offered to do odd jobs for neighbors for pay, such as raking leaves or painting their houses.
But as we know, the East Coast rapist had already been named. His attacks were getting publicity, the billboards were going up, and it was only a matter of time for Thomas, which is why when you said, do you think that he felt like they were onto him? I do, because all these
billboards were going up he's getting nervous according to the washington post.com aaron thomas would go for walks that had almost a scripted ending he'd see a woman his heart would race his hands would shake he'd approach her he'd scare into submission and then he would rape her he was a doting father figure and a fun loving companion but also jealous violent and prone to sneak out at night when he would prey on the vulnerable and hide his actions from everyone he was street smart
Tough, physically chiseled, and unpredictable. Thomas was also careless enough to leave his DNA at 13 different attacks. On March 5th, 2011, Thomas attempted to take his life in his jail cell after being arrested. Of course he did. He tried to hang himself. Prison officials took Thomas to the hospital for a few hours, but he was returned to his cell later that same day. Also on March 5th, 2011, officials held a press conference announcing that they had
caught the East Coast rapist. After he was caught, Thomas did interviews with the Washington Post and met with psychiatrists. His defense team originally was planning to pursue an insanity defense. Thomas was telling the Post, the police, and his family that he had a split personality and that his other personality named Irwin had committed the crimes. But Thomas would eventually admit that he was faking this split personality disorder and that Irwin was just a name he gave for his problem.
I want to note here that the insanity defense really boils down to whether a defendant had the ability to differentiate between right and wrong at the time of his crimes. Now, it seems clear both from Thomas's M.O. and from statements he made to police and the Washington Post that he definitely knew right from wrong. Thomas admits that he doesn't remember much detail about his crimes, even though the horrifying details are etched into all of his victims' memories.
Quote, it wasn't until a year after his arrest at a preliminary hearing in Prince William that Thomas said he realized all the harm he had caused. With his mother sitting nearby on a courtroom bench, Thomas pushed his forehead into the table in front of him, barely able to listen as the three young women described being forced to drop their bags of Halloween candy before two of them were raped in a wooded ravine as cold rain fell around them.
On November 30th, 2012, Thomas pled guilty to two counts of rape and three counts of abduction in Prince William County, Virginia, relating to the 2009 Dell City sexual assaults on the teenage trick-or-treaters. On March 1st, 2013, Thomas was sentenced to three life terms for the sexual assaults of the trick-or-treaters.
The victims testified at the hearing along with one of their mothers. One victim testified that, quote, I would be in a classroom and just get random flashbacks that would occur. I would try to avoid leaving my house or going out in public. It ruins their lives. 100%. On March 15th, 2013, Thomas was sentenced to two life terms for the May 2001 sexual assault in Leesburg, Virginia. During this sentence hearing, his victim testified her name is Tracy Saunders and she, as
asked that her name be provided because she wants to help others as a victim advocate so i've left the names out of every other victim just because they're still alive and they are victims to this but tracy clarified she wanted to be named she described the terror and trauma from the attack that happened to her 12 years earlier saunders testified as thomas stared down at the defense table his head bowed quote he hurt my body but i would not allow him to hurt my head i became stronger than him
Saunders also testified to something very chilling. When she saw photos of Thomas from when he was younger, she recognized him as her attacker. He'd come to her place one time previously before he raped her the day she was moving out when she was advertising an entertainment center she wanted to sell. So she's like, no, he for sure had scoped out my place. He knew who I was.
The judge said, quote, what you did to her is the same as if you had taken a knife and drove it right through her heart. Instead, you drove it through her soul, which is so true. He might not have stabbed her in the heart, but he stabbed her in the soul. She will forever be hurt.
Another victim testified saying, quote, my life has changed forever. I continue to struggle with the emotional impact of my rape. He took much more than my body that night. He took my sense of security and mental well-being. But through therapy and through prayer, I have become mentally strong again. I am eager to put this behind me and continue my recovery.
After everything was said and done, police went back and examined dozens of rape cases up and down the East Coast. We may never know the full extent of the crimes that Aaron Thomas committed. Thomas admitted in interviews that his crime started even earlier than the police timeline of 1997, perhaps as early as 1992 or 1993, but we will never know all of the details. And that is the story of the East Coast Rapist. Okay, you guys, we will be back.
next week with another Halloween episode I am so excited for. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.