Carjack, rape suspect pleads to five charges

What began as a quick stop for snacks on a holiday weekend ended in horror for two young ladies.

The friends stopped at a 7-Eleven store in Portsmouth to pick up some refreshments early on the morning of July 4. When they returned to the car and started driving again, William Elwin Boyd popped up from the back seat. Waving a gun, he ordered them to turn over their cell phones and purses and to drive where he told them.

By the time the driver wrecked her car in Whaleyville at 3:30 a.m., he had sexually assaulted them both.

On Wednesday, the nightmare was over when their attacker pleaded guilty to five felonies in Suffolk Circuit Court.

Boyd, 23, admitted his guilt to charges of rape, forcible sodomy, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and two counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

According to evidence presented by prosecutor Susan Walton, a Suffolk Police detective was called to the scene of an accident in Whaleyville that morning. A passenger vehicle had struck a utility pole on the side of the road. Both victims told folks who stopped to help that they had been carjacked and assaulted and that the man who had done it had fled the scene.

Numerous law enforcement agencies responded with helicopters, dogs and more to track the suspect. A police dog led his handler to a bloody T-shirt and firearm in the woods, Walton said, and eventually to the defendant. Boyd was sitting in an open area with injuries to his face consistent with broken glass, she said.

The women told investigators Boyd had emerged from the backseat after they left the Portsmouth convenience store. As they drove toward Suffolk on U.S. Route 58, he robbed them and then told the passenger to put her seat down so she could perform oral sex on him.

That assault began around the area of the Hampton Roads Executive Airport in Chesapeake on Route 58, Walton said. It continued for some time.

Boyd then ordered the driver to pull over near the U.S. Route 460 exit in Suffolk. He made the passenger begin driving while he ordered the second woman into the backseat and raped her, Walton said.

When the car neared Whaleyville, the woman who was being assaulted was able to grab Boyd’s firearm and throw it into the front seat to the driver. Boyd tried to retrieve the gun, and the ensuing struggle caused the wreck.

Both women suffered injuries, including a severe back sprain, Walton said. They are now on the road to recovery.

Boyd also has outstanding charges in Portsmouth related to the crime. There, he is charged with two counts of abduction with intent to defile, five counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony, one count of carjacking, two counts of robbery and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He is set to face trial there on Nov. 17.

His sentencing in Suffolk Circuit Court is slated for Dec. 29.