The day begins quite early at horse farms, and workers on Yearling Row here outside of Chesapeake City were showing up in numbers when a battered, half-naked woman ran into the middle of the complex seeking help.
"Upon arrival, deputies made contact with a female who claimed that she had recently been raped by two subjects nearby,” said Lt. Michael Holmes of the Cecil County Sheriff's Office.
Holmes says the 29-year old woman told deputies her night of terror began at a gas station on Route 40 in Elkton when she met a man later identified as 54-year old Howard Randall Shepard.
"They struck up a conversation,” said Holmes, “The man asked if she wanted to go out and continue partying for the evening, and she agreed to do so."
Shepard drove the woman in his white pickup truck to his house in the middle of that horse farm nine miles away where they shared some cocaine.
Ultimately, according to charging documents, he forced her to take her clothes off and to perform sex acts under the threat that he could hand her over to sex traffickers.
At some point, Shepard left the bedroom and she attempted to barricade the door, but he returned with another man identified as 40-year old Daniel Lee Carley and the two men forced their way inside, beat her and then Carley raped her as well.
"The second male subject is alleged to have placed a cable around her neck and strangled her,” said Holmes, “The victim stated she feared for her life and during the incident, she actually faked being dead."
The victim was so convincing, it appears her attackers then turned their attention to covering up their crimes.
"She believes she heard the two individuals discussing plans to dispose of her body,” said Holmes.
Police say Carley got cold feet as they discussed disposing of the body, and he left the house with Shepard following behind him.
That gave the victim her chance to make a break for it, and that's when she ran to the horse farm's main office a short distance away and ended the ordeal some five hours after it began.
