Thread: Police Seek Sex Offender With Underground Dungeon

http://www.nbc17.com/news/8061650/detail.html



COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Authorities in South Carolina are looking for a convicted sex offender. They suspect the man of raping two teens in an underground dungeon behind his home.

Police allege that Kenneth Hinson took a 17-year-old girl from a Darlington County mobile home while she was sleeping Monday night. Police said he bound her mouth, sexually assaulted her, then left her in the underground room. It's described as not much larger than a closet with a four-foot ceiling.

Police said Hinson later returned to the mobile home and took another 17-year-old girl, sexually assaulted her, then left. The teens managed to wriggle free, get out of the shed, walk through some woods and flag down a passing motorist.

Hinson is wanted on kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct charges.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Tim Stec said that Hinson was spotted Wednesday night near the Darlington-Chesterfield county line, but investigators were not able to catch him.

Stec says investigators think Hinson is armed, on foot and still in the area.

Hinson was convicted in 1991 for second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Shortly before his release from prison in 2000, the state attorney general recommended Hinson be committed indefinitely to a Department of Mental Health facility as a sexually violent predator.

Attorney general's spokesman Trey Walker said the case against Hinson was dismissed by a judge and he was released. Hinson had registered as a sex offender as required by law.

They've caught this creep I believe.