Yesterday's account differed significantly from the initial charging documents, in which the woman told police she was sitting on a bench at the Nursery Road station when a stranger jammed what she believed to be a gun into her side and dragged her down a hill.
The victim escaped by jumping into the Patapsco River and running toward Nursery Road. She was naked and wrapped in plastic, and a passing motorist gave her his jacket and called 911. Police said they spotted a man, later identified as Waller, coming out of the woods and apprehended him as he attempted to flee in the river.
According to officers who testified at a motions hearing last month, Waller referred to the girl as a "stupid crackhead" and said he was "at the wrong place at the wrong time" as evidence was collected from his body at Harbor Hospital.
He told police that he had met the woman at the Cromwell light-rail station and rode with her to the Nursery Road station. He said that while they were in the woods drinking, she asked him for $10 to buy drugs. Waller said that he told her he didn't have enough money, and that she became angry and "started acting crazy," eventually jumping into the water.
"I did not touch this woman," he reportedly told detectives.
But an exam confirmed that the woman had wounds consistent with rape. DNA evidence taken from Waller matched that of the victim.
Prosecutors said the victim had alcohol in her system, as well as opiates. About a week after the attack, the woman was charged in Anne Arundel District Court with drug possession and has since pleaded guilty. She was also charged four times in November with theft and is appealing her convictions, according to electronic court records.
The Sun does not identify victims of sexual assault.
A series of missteps allowed Waller, who was apparently homeless, to remain free in the months leading up to the attack, despite failing to follow guidelines as a registered sex offender.
Upon his release in 2003, after serving time for a rape conviction, he was required to register for life as a violent sex offender.
After Waller was convicted in August 2006 of indecent exposure and of failing to notify authorities of his current address, an Anne Arundel County judge placed him on unsupervised probation, sparing him from having to check in regularly with a probation agent.
When Anne Arundel County police determined a month later that Waller had again failed to give an accurate address, state police said they would declare him an "absconder," which should have triggered an arrest warrant. But no one applied for one.
Waller was arrested again in December 2006 on a charge of exposure in Anne Arundel County, but a District Court commissioner told The Sun that she released him to await trial because she was unable to look up his criminal history on a computer server that had temporarily crashed.
An Anne Arundel Circuit Court judge threw out the indecent-exposure charge in October because the alleged victim could not be sure whether the incident occurred in the county or city.
The Linthicum rape occurred six days later.
Waller will be sentenced next week, and Deputy State's Attorney Laura Kiessling said the state will ask for the maximum sentence.
justin.fenton@baltsun.com
