Rape suspect admits guilt in 2012 attack inside KC woman’s home

Facing DNA technology that tied him to the crime, a Kansas City rape suspect admitted his guilt Tuesday in the June 2012 attack on a woman awakened in her bed by an intruder.

Deorio Holland, 31, pleaded guilty to forcible rape and forcible sodomy during a hearing in Jackson County Circuit Court. Although sentencing won’t take place until May 5, Holland has agreed to serve a 23-year sentence, Jackson County prosecutors said Tuesday.

In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dropped other counts related to the attack.

Police officers met the victim just after 3 a.m. June 5, 2012, at a convenience store in the 1700 block of Independence Avenue, where she had run after the assault.

She told officers that she had been awakened about 1:30 a.m. by a noise in her home and soon confronted an unknown man, according to court records.

She tried to run, but the man pulled her back into the apartment by her hair, struck her and began to choke her. The woman told officers she briefly lost consciousness.

When she came to, the man said he had a gun and would “kill her” if she did not cooperate, court records said.

The man then sexually assaulted the woman multiple times, the criminal charges alleged. Afterward he sodomized her and poured a jug of bleach on her.

The man then left, saying he was going for drugs and would return later to “get some more of that.”

When the woman could no longer hear the man, she fled to the convenience store, meeting officers who noticed a “strong chemical odor” on her body.

This story was originally published April 1, 2014 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Rape suspect admits guilt in 2012 attack inside KC woman’s home."