By Melissa Harris and Gus G. Sentementes , Sun reporter|July 31, 2008
In April 2003, William Vincent Brown pleaded guilty to dealing 30 gel caps of heroin to an undercover Howard County detective, but a judge kept him free on bail as he awaited sentencing.
Six days later, Baltimore police say, he raped and nearly killed a prostitute, leaving her for dead in a city park after severing her ears.
The judge's decision not to hold Brown was the first of many breaks the defendant received in a drug case that moved through Howard County's court system at a time when city police say they now believe he carried out three violent attacks on women.
In the two months between pleading guilty to the heroin charge and his sentencing in Howard County, Brown allegedly raped and killed a prostitute and raped and nearly killed another, according to city police.
Authorities charged him with those crimes Friday.
In June 2003, Brown returned to the Howard County courthouse, where Howard County Deputy State's Attorney Mary V. Murphy, who prosecuted the case, said she asked for a five- to 10-year prison sentence for Brown's offense.
Instead, now-retired Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney placed him on probation and delayed imposing a five-year prison sentence - which he set to begin in March 2004 - as an incentive for Brown to stay out of trouble.
But in January 2004, Brown was arrested on drug charges in Baltimore. Sweeney again delayed imposing the prison sentence and declined to rule that Brown had violated his probation, the judge writing that he wanted to wait for the city case to be resolved, according to court records.
On March 8, 2004, city police say, Brown raped and killed a 15-year-old girl.
Brown's trip through the Howard judicial system shows a series of breaks given to a defendant who appeared in court records to be a run-of-the-mill drug dealer, abiding by almost all of the rules of his release and making strides toward turning his life around.
According to court records, Brown promptly appeared before his probation agent, held down a full-time job, paid all of his fines and passed every drug and alcohol screening.
Based on that and the eventual dismissal of the Baltimore drug case - the officers who had arrested him were convicted in federal court of corruption - Sweeney in September 2005 suspended Brown's entire prison sentence.
Sweeney declined to comment for this article.
