Baltimore police and prosecutors knew a “serial rapist” was on the loose as early as 2005, but never alerted the public, and persisted with prosecutions against two men who were later exonerated in the murder of a 15-year-old girl, court records show.

Records from the 2006 trial of Terry Jones, 26 — who was acquitted of the 2004 killing of 15-year-old Antania Mills — show that police had DNA evidence indicating an unknown man was involved with murdering Mills, killing a second woman, and raping a third.

Jones’ attorney, James Rhodes, raised concerns about a “serial rapist” on the loose in January 2006.

“I am in need of additional information on the person identified as what appears to be a serial rapist in the attached DNA database report,” he wrote in a Jan. 12, 2006 letter to prosecutor Diana Smith.

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On March 1, 2005, the Baltimore Police Department received a report from the state’s DNA database that Mills’ murder was connected to the 2004 killing of Emma O’Hearn, a woman with a prostitution record, and the 2003 rape of a 36-year-old suspected prostitute whose “ears were cut away from the side of her head” during the crime, court records show.

Last Friday, more than three years later, police arrested William Brown, 41, of 4800 block of Carmine Avenue in Gwynn Oak, and charged him with the three crimes.

A task force of veteran homicide detectives also is looking into whether he is connected to any of the five recent unsolved killings of prostitutes in Baltimore since April.

Rhodes said his client has never met Brown.

“This case was one of those very rare cases, when you know 1,000 percent that your client is innocent,” Rhodes said. “The state probably knows it, but they have a family screaming for justice and a public upset over a 15-year-old’s murder. They knew my client’s DNA did not match. They didn’t know William Brown’s name, but they knew at the time he had been involved in the murder and rape of Ms. Mills.”

The court records also show Mills’ killer dropped off an unsigned note at a neighbor’s house confessing to the crime and apologizing. Rhodes said a handwriting expert determined Jones could not have written the note.

“He said he was sorry he did this, but she threatened to expose him and his career,”  Rhodes said of the killer. “He also wrote that he was at the funeral of Ms. Mills.”

Police in 2006 also charged a 27-year-old Baltimore man in Mills’ death under the theory that he had conspired with Jones, but prosecutors dropped the charges after Jones was acquitted.

Brown was convicted of distributing narcotics in Howard County in 2003, but had never been charged in a violent crime — until last week when Baltimore police say they got a hit in the state’s DNA database, showing Brown was the perpetrator of the three violent crimes.

Near Brown’s Baltimore County home, neighbor Tracey Smith, 35, said the suspect was friendly to her.

“He seemed like a pretty nice guy,” she said. “One day, he offered to give me a ride home from the bus stop. I said ‘No.’ If what they say now is true, I’m thankful I didn’t take it.”

lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com

sjanis@baltimoreexaminer.com