Charges dropped in rape case

Poised in the witness box, an 81-year-old woman scanned a near-empty Hanover County courtroom yesterday, looking for the man she told police had raped her.

She testified that the man entered her second-floor apartment, strolled to a back bedroom, and then returned to the recliner where she sat and attacked her.

"Let's have some fun," she quoted the man as saying.

Then, in the courtroom yesterday, a prosecutor asked the witness to point out the man.

Seated directly in front of her, 20 feet away at the defense table with his lawyer, and dressed in a jail-issue, bright orange jumpsuit, Michael Lamont Hinton was hard to miss.

But the alleged victim demurred.

"I don't see him," she said.

Defense lawyer Hugh S. Campbell immediately asked that the charges be dropped.

And with that, General District Judge Peter L. Trible dismissed rape and breaking-and-entering charges against Hinton, 28, who seemed unaware of the proceedings.

. . .

A longtime mental patient, according to his family and testimony,, Hinton was released yesterday evening from the Pamunkey Regional Jail.

He has been under arrest since Oct. 11.

That was the same day, at 4:30 in the morning, that a man entered the unlocked door of the woman's second-floor apartment while she watched television, removed her underwear, and then attacked her as she tried to fight him off, the woman said in court yesterday.

She lived alone.

But her statements in court differed in some ways from information in a search warrant filed in connection with the incident in the 200 block of Cottage Green Drive in Ashland.

In that document, the victim said her attacker completed a sex act. Yesterday, she said he didn't.

"I was in shock," she told Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Shannon Hoehl yesterday, explaining why she didn't contact anyone until her sisters came to visit some seven hours after the incident.

In a photo lineup, the victim identified Hinton, a neighbor who also lived alone, as her assailant, according to the search warrant. The woman said she has been hospitalized in recent weeks for depression and for trouble walking.

Commonwealth's Attorney R.E. "Trip" Chalkley III said evidence in the case is being reviewed; final tests for DNA evidence have not been completed.

The proceeding yesterday was a preliminary hearing used to determine if there are sufficient grounds to try the case. Charges still could be brought against Hinton in the future.

But yesterday, his parents waited to take him home. And as tears streamed down their faces, they spoke briefly of the ordeal to raise a man who had shown severe mental problems since early childhood.

Hinton's father said the young man would wander aimlessly, had learning problems, and one time drove alone to Boston, only to be found walking the snowy streets there in a T-shirt.

. . .

Hinton, according to testimony yesterday, has a form of schizophrenia and a bipolar disorder, mental illnesses involving hallucinations, severe mood swings, and breaks with reality.

"He's been picked up by police many, many times," the father said.

The family of the victim had no comment as they left the courthouse.
Contact Bill McKelway at (804) 649-6601 or .