News

Suspected rapist caught in Mississippi

Boyd

By , Published: March 11, 2022

Henderson County sheriff’s deputies charged a Georgia man this week with raping and kidnapping a woman in Henderson County after he was found driving the victim’s car in Mississippi, the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

Aaron Marquez Boyd, 32, of Waynesboro, Georgia, waived extradition from Mississippi earlier this week and was booked into the Henderson County jail on charges of first-degree kidnapping, first-degree forcible rape and robbery with a dangerous weapon. He remained in the county jail Thursday under a $600,000 secured bond. Boyd is also wanted as an absconder from Georgia Probation and Parole.
A nationwide attempt to locate Boyd began on Feb.10 after sheriff’s deputies responded to a report of a kidnapping and rape that occurred on Howard Gap Road near U.S. 64.
Once they responded to the call, deputies learned from the victim that she was forced into her own vehicle at gunpoint as she walked out of a Hardees restaurant at 6001 Asheville Highway near I-26. She was then forced to drive to a vacant lot near the intersection of Howard Gap Road and U.S. 64. After assaulting the woman, the suspect fled the area in her vehicle. She was able to keep her cell phone and call for assistance.
The woman was treated and released from an area hospital after talking with investigators.
With the help of video surveillance from Hardees, investigators were also able to determine the suspect left his own vehicle in the business’s parking lot. Investigators entered Boyd and the victim’s vehicle in a national data base as wanted and sent out a nation-wide attempt to locate the victim’s vehicle after identifying Boyd as the suspect, according to the press release.
A variety of law enforcement agencies including the U.S. Marshal's Carolinas Regional Fugitive Task Force in Asheville and Columbia, S.C. Divisions and the U.S. Marshal's Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force Gulfport, Miss., divisions, located Boyd in Gulfport, Miss., on Feb. 13 driving the victim’s vehicle. He was arrested after a brief vehicle and foot chase, according to the press release.
The U.S. Marshal's Carolinas Regional Fugitive Task Force is made up of state and local law enforcement officers from South Carolina and North Carolina, who work directly in conjunction with deputy U.S. marshals, to apprehend state and local violent offenders and sexual predators. The Asheville Division of the task force consists of law enforcement officers from the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office, Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office, Madison County Sheriff’s Office, Transylvania County Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.