Former Carroll County schools Superintendent William H. Hyde has been extradited to Virginia, where he faces two felony counts of aggravated sexual battery in a case involving the same girl he was convicted of raping and sexually abusing in Carroll County in 2002.
What should have been a four-hour drive from Carroll County to Virginia turned into a nine-hour trip along icy and snowy traffic-clogged highways for two out-of-state investigators sent to pick up Hyde, 63.
With a Monday deadline to get Hyde, and weather forecasters predicting snow this weekend, Virginia authorities figured the sooner they could get to Maryland, the better. They chose Wednesday.
"Our weather people were saying just flurries," said Capt. James Richardson of the York-Poquoson, Va., sheriff's office. "But we got two inches or so."
Once the investigators were on the road, Richardson said, they had little choice but to stick with the plan.
Hyde appeared Wednesday night before a Virginia magistrate judge, who ordered him held without bail at the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail, Richardson said. In Virginia, an aggravated sexual battery conviction carries a sentence of one to 20 years in prison.
The regional jail serves four small jurisdictions: the cities of Williamsburg and Poquoson, and the counties of James City and York.
Hyde's next court appearance, a preliminary hearing, has not been set, said Leslie Siman-Tov, a prosecutor with the Virginia Commonwealth's Attorney's Office.
"His attorney needs to get with the clerk's office to set that date," she said.
Richardson said that date is usually set within a month or two of the suspect's first court appearance.
If the court determines there is probable cause to support the charges, Richardson said, the case will go before a grand jury to decide whether to indict Hyde.
Hyde was released from the Carroll County Detention Center last week after serving less than 12 months of an 18-month term for raping and sexually assaulting an elementary school-age girl from Westminster. The same girl has accused him of abusing her during a trip to Williamsburg in July 2002.
In Carroll, Hyde was charged in August 2002 with raping and sexually abusing the girl at her family's home during a 2 1/2 -week visit to Carroll County two months earlier.
In January 2004, Carroll Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns sentenced Hyde to serve 18 months of a 15-year prison term. He also gave Hyde five years of probation and ordered him to pay $4,455.60 in restitution and to cover the cost of future therapy for the girl.
Carroll prosecutor Tracy A. Gilmore and the victim's parents had requested a 25-year prison term.
The Sun is not disclosing many details of the case to protect the girl's identity.