November 23, 2024
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Bar Harbor police still looking for alien rape suspect

BAR HARBOR – Police are looking for a man from Jamaica who worked at a local hotel this summer and is accused of sexually assaulting a co-worker.

The last time local police talked to Horace Blackwood, 25, he told them by cell phone that he was on his way to the police station to talk about the incident.

He never showed up.

That was on Aug. 7. Since then police have learned Blackwood paid $100 that day for a taxi ride to Bangor, where he was dropped off at the Kmart parking lot on Hogan Road.

“We’re still looking for him,” Bar Harbor Police Chief Nate Young said Wednesday.

Blackwood is not believed to be in Maine, the chief said.

Young said police think Blackwood was trying to get back to Jamaica, but did not succeed. State and federal officials were notified quickly, the chief said, and since then have been on the lookout for the fugitive who is facing two charges of gross sexual assault.

If Blackwood had tried to leave the country, his name would have caught the attention of border and immigration officials and he would have been detained, according to the chief. Blackwood had a ticket for an airline flight back to Jamaica from Boston, he said.

“His ticket was pulled,” Young said. “It will be difficult [to find him] but not impossible. We are receiving assistance from the FBI.”

According to an affidavit filed in Hancock County Superior Court, Blackwood is accused of sexually assaulting a co-worker early in the morning of Aug. 7. They both had been at a party at a Bar Harbor house the night before when the alleged victim, feeling very intoxicated, walked with friends back to her room at hotel employee housing on Maple Street and went to bed.

Blackwood, who lived in the same building but left the party after the woman, is accused of raping her as she slept, according to the affidavit. She told police she awoke in the early morning with a man who she thought was Blackwood on top of her, but then fell back asleep after he refused to get off. She could not see his face, she said.

The woman went to Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor the next day and reported the assault. After some initial investigation, police called Blackwood at work on his cell phone and asked him to come to the station for an interview about the alleged assault. He said he would come to the station in half an hour, after work.

Blackwood left work early but did not go to the police station. He never returned, not even to pick up his paychecks that night, according to the document.

Police later matched DNA evidence obtained from the alleged victim to DNA samples from beer and juice bottles that Blackwood had left behind in his room, the affidavit indicated.


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