LEONARDTOWN (Feb. 4, 2009)— A funeral service was held on Monday for a Lexington Park man who was found guilty this month in Anne Arundel County for two rapes he committed in 1988 in the Annapolis area.

A fingerprint found at the scene led police to William Joseph Trice, 47, of Pegg Road, in Lexington Park. Trice had been working as a delivery truck driver at the time of the rapes.
A cold case effort by an investigator revealed that sloppy police work in the initial investigation in which detectives failed to enter the fingerprint in the national database. With new eyes on the cold case, the culprit was found to be Trice and DNA linked him to the second case and after two years in the court system, he was found guilty and faced a life sentence when he was due before a judge in March.

Trice had most recently been working as a tow truck driver in New York. Investigators in the St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department are currently reviewing many old murder cases and its possible that the evidence in the Anne Arundel case could link him to unsolved cases in this area.

Police in Anne Arundel had focused on the rapes as being crimes of opportunity and told news reporters that they believed he could be linked to other cases in that area.

Prosecutor’s laid out evidence that Trice had stalked one of his victims, calling her four times on the phone with tidbits of information about her he had stolen from her car. His victim, who had been working as a waitress in an Eastport restaurant testified that he broke into her home, using the stolen information to learn where she lived.

For those who grieve his loss, a memorial service will be held at Brinsfield Funeral Home. Potential past victims can call the Cold Case squad.