Man charged in 4 rapes claims 11 other attacks

By ADAM BEAM

A man charged with raping four women claims he raped 11 others during a one-year period, and Richland County investigators are trying to locate victims.

Andrew Hingleton was arrested Jan. 20 and charged with four counts of sexual assault. Since then, five more women have come forward.

Investigators are interviewing them to determine if more charges can be brought against the 40-year-old Hingleton, who lived with his parents and worked the night shift at a Fairfield County plant.

Capt. Stan Smith with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department said Hingleton told investigators he would leave his job at the Lang-Merka facility in Ridgeway and pick up women walking alone on Farrow Road. He offered some of them drugs, others just a ride home.

In each case, Hingleton told police, the woman was driven to a secluded area on Hilltop Road, a dirt road in Richland County, and forced to have sex or perform other sex acts. Hingleton said he would then would drive off, leaving the victims to find their way home.

Investigators began to suspect three reported rapes were related Dec. 4. Smith said the location and similar circumstances tipped investigators that it could be the work of one person.

Investigators sent samples taken from rape kits to the department’s forensics facility. Forensic scientists used that evidence to confirm the cases were related and build a DNA profile of the rapist.

Investigators linked Hingleton to the fourth rape, reported Jan. 4, through other evidence but not DNA, department spokesman Lt. Chris Cowan said.

The lab work was completed Jan. 12. Investigators sent the DNA information to the State Law Enforcement Division, which ran it through the Combined Database Index System, or CODIS — a national database of DNA profiles maintained by the FBI.

On Jan. 19, SLED confirmed the DNA matched Hingleton’s. At 10:30 the next morning, deputies were at Hingleton’s house on West Campanella Drive to arrest him.

Hingleton has cooperated with investigators and has not asked to speak with a lawyer, Smith said. Hingleton’s father declined to comment Thursday afternoon.

The Sheriff’s Department did not warn the public about a possible serial rapist in December because investigators had different descriptions of the rapist and the car he was driving, Sheriff Leon Lott said.

The last reported rape was Jan. 4, a month after investigators began to suspect the rapes could be related.

“We made the proper decision,” Lott said. “We don’t want to put out a panic unless we have some information that can help the public identify him.”

Lott credited the department’s forensic facility with identifying Hingleton.

Hingleton’s arrest record includes multiple drug and larceny charges, Smith said. He pointed to a Dec. 4, 2004, drug conviction that allowed investigators to identify Hingleton. Because of that conviction, Hingleton had to enter his DNA into CODIS. Without that information, investigators might not have found him.

“We were not close to getting him through our normal investigation methods,” Lott said.

Lt. Nancy Weeks, head of the department’s victim’s services unit, said her officers are interviewing the victims. She said sexual assault victims often feel ashamed or guilty and don’t want to report the crime.

“He may have threatened them, to harm them or a family member, so they are not coming forward,” Weeks said.

Since the forensics lab opened in November 2004, it has received 700 requests for analysis and completed about 400 cases, including 83 CODIS matches.

A woman in Lang-Merka’s Human Resources department could not confirm Hingleton worked there, but said he could have worked there through a temporary employment agency.