State sees Jones guilty verdict as “victory”
After about two and a half hours of deliberations, a jury found 60-year-old Harry Jones guilty of ten out of twenty charges for holding a woman against her will in his Salisbury home last summer.
First degree assault, first degree sex offense and false imprisonment are just a few of those charges.
Wicomico County State’s Attorney Matt Maciarello says, “He’s disgusting. What he did was egregious and disgusting. He just treated the victim like a sub-human.”
Although Jones was facing twenty counts, the state is seeing this verdict as a win. They say Jones held a 37-year-old woman at his home on Keyes Lane from June 13th of 2015 until she escaped in a panic on the 16th. She made a break for it with her wrists bound with zip ties and ropes hanging from her body.
Maciarello says, “This is a story of survival. This is the story of the human spirit and also of the kindness of the citizens that live here. They stopped and helped a complete stranger no knowing what was going on Old Ocean City Road.”
According the victim, Jones would tie her up and leave her in a bathtub with a sock in her mouth and duct tape on top whenever he left the house.
She said he also forced her to perform oral sex several times and attempted to rape her. A DNA analyst found his sperm and blood on the tank top the victim was wearing while held captive at his house.
Maciarello says, “Those officers were able to get so much evidence that corroborated the story of the victim.”
Those findings lead the jury to convict Jones. He’s facing up to three life sentences.
Maciarello says, “Hopefully he’ll never be able to hurt another hair on another person ever again.”
The state says Jones’s sentencing should be in the next thirty to forty days.
