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UPPER MARLBORO, MD (October 13, 2022) – Forty-two year old Alphonso Owens, of Washington, D.C., was indicted by grand juries in Prince George’s County, Maryland and the District of Columbia for two separate home invasion sexual assaults of children that occurred in September and October of 2011.
On Oct. 11, 2022, Owens was indicted by a grand jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old child in a home invasion attack that occurred on Sept. 26, 2011. On July 27, 2022, he was indicted by a grand jury in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for sexually assaulting an 11-year-old child in a home invasion attack that occurred on Oct. 29, 2011.
The indictments were announced today by Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy, Prince George’s Police Chief Malik Aziz, Matthew Graves, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and Robert J. Contee III, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
Owens was indicted on multiple felony charges for both attacks. In Prince George’s County, he was charged with first-degree rape, second-degree assault, second-degree sex offense, third-degree sex offense, fourth-degree sex offense, and first-degree burglary. In the District of Columbia, he was charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse with aggravating circumstances, and three counts of first-degree child sexual abuse with aggravating circumstances.
Analysis of DNA evidence linked Owens to both attacks.
The charges in the Prince George’s County indictment carry a statutory maximum sentence of life, with a mandatory minimum of 25 years, and lifetime sex offender registration. The charges in the D.C. indictment carry a statutory maximum sentence of life without possibility of release. If found guilty, Owens would also be required to register as a Class A sex offender for up to the remainder of his lifetime.
In the Prince George’s County case, according to the government’s evidence, on September 26, 2011, in the early morning hours, Owens broke into an Oxon Hill residence and sexually assaulted a 10-year-old child and then fled. The victim woke up a family member, and police were called.
According to the government’s evidence in the D.C. case, in the early morning hours of on Oct. 29, 2011, the 11-year-old child was sleeping in her family’s ground floor apartment in the Fort Stanton area of Southeast Washington when Owens entered through the victim’s bedroom window. He threatened to kill her if she yelled or screamed. Owens sexually assaulted her and then fled back out the window. The victim immediately woke up her mother and reported the assault, and her mother called police.
Police believe that the offenses may potentially have been related. Detectives with MPD’s Cold Case Sexual Assault Unit submitted the D.C. evidence for new DNA testing in 2020. DNA ultimately linked the defendant to both offenses. Owens was a stranger to both juvenile victims and their families.
Owens was convicted in 2016 of first-degree rape for a home invasion sexual assault that he committed in Baltimore in 2015 for which he is currently serving a sentence of double life + 25 years in Maryland.
An indictment contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.