OLATHE, Kan. — A Johnson County sheriff’s deputy told a judge Wednesday how an Independence man kidnapped and raped her.
District Attorney Steve Howe wants Brady Newman-Caddell to get the maximum possible punishment. Howe is seeking to depart from the standard sentencing guidelines because of the heinous nature of the crimes connected to Newman-Caddell.
According to the sentencing grid, the maximum sentence for what Newman-Caddell pleaded guilty to is 27 and a half years.
Prosecutors say Newman-Caddell should spend 55 years behind bars because evidence shows he and fellow defendant William Luth systematically targeted women to attack and sexually assault.
The female sheriff deputy testified about being terrorized by Newman-Caddell after she was kidnapped outside the Johnson County jail as she was headed into work.
“There was no doubt. I knew I was going to be raped,” the deputy told the judge. “I was doing anything I could to survive.”
Evidence shows the two men spotted the woman when she stopped at a convenience store in Olathe. Cellphone records show that in a text to Newman-Caddell, Luth wrote: “She isn’t going to see you, I’ll knock her out.”
There’s also evidence that before the attack the two men cruised around Westport and the Country Club Plaza looking for women to target.
An Independence woman also testified about being raped by Newman-Caddell 8 months before the deputy was attacked. Taylor Hirth’s attack happened in front of her 2-year-old daughter when she and Newman-Caddell were neighbors in the same apartment building.
“I think about how frustrating it is that I reported and tried to prevent this from happening to someone else, and it still happened to somebody else,” she said.
Police believed her when DNA collected from the deputy matched the two men who raped Hirth.
“Believe women,” Hirth said. “When we come forward and say that there is something going on, that we have been harmed and traumatized, even if it is something that is normalized in our society, believe women.”
Luth has already been sentenced to 44 years in prison, double the normal penalty, because of the violent nature of the attack.
Judge Brenda Cameron didn’t sentence Newman-Caddell on Wednesday. She has ordered a pre-sentence report before she decides how long to put Newman-Caddell away. She will announce her decision Jan. 23.
