Maryland man gets 30 years for 1999 abduction, assault of Somerset Co. girl
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A Maryland man will spend the next 30 years in prison for the 1999 abduction and sexual assault of a 10-year-old Somerset County girl.
Timothy D. Nelson, 50, of Cumberland, Md., was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson in Johnstown. He could have received life in prison for the charges of kidnapping and aggravated sexual abuse of a person under 12 years old, to which he pleaded guilty in July.
Nelson’s sentencing hearing was nearly 20 years after he, according to authorities, drove to Cairnbrook in Shade Township, Somerset County, and abducted a girl who had been walking with two friends.
Nelson approached the group and began asking questions. When the girl began to answer, he grabbed her, forced her into his car and drove away, according to U.S. Attorney Scott Brady.
“Nelson then placed the minor victim on the floor of the front passenger seat. While driving away from the area of the abduction, Nelson threatened the minor victim with a handgun pointing it at her head. The minor victim was screaming and Nelson struck the minor victim with his hand in an attempt to quiet her,” Brady said in a news release.
The pair ended up in West Virginia, where Nelson forced the girl to perform a sex act and then gave her a paper bag and napkin to clean herself with, Brady said. He threw the items out of the car window and drove in the direction of Markleysburg, Pa., dropping the girl off on the side of the road shortly after crossing the Pennsylvania line into Fayette County.
The 1999 kidnapping set off an extensive search by state and local authorities but remained unsolved for years. However, new advances in fingerprint identification technology led authorities to name Nelson as a suspect last fall, when partial prints obtained from the brown paper bag and napkin were re-submitted to the Next Generation Identification system to search for a possible match, Brady said.
The FBI Laboratory confirmed the prints as a match to Nelson, setting the stage for his arrest on Jan. 8.
Subsequent forensic analysis proved that Nelson’s DNA was a match for the 1999 Cairnbrook kidnapping, as well as two separate kidnappings/sexual assaults on minor females from 1988 and 1989 in Maryland, Brady said.
Nelson also was ordered to pay a $5,000 assessment under the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act.