Homeless man, 55, charged in rape of Campbell teen on way to school

By Jeanne Starmack

The girl was abducted a few streets away from her home.

CAMPBELL — A 15-year-old girl walking to the high school was abducted at knifepoint, taken to an abandoned house in the city and raped, police said.

They have charged Charles E. Hudson, 55, whom they describe as a homeless man who stays at abandoned houses, with felony rape and felony kidnapping. He was arraigned Tuesday morning in Campbell Municipal Court and was expected to be transferred soon to the Mahoning County jail in lieu of $50,000 bond, said Detective Sgt. John Rusnak.

Rusnak said the investigation of the attack began at 7:30 a.m. Monday when the girl and her mother came to the police station. The rape had occurred approximately a half-hour earlier at a vacant house at 117 Gordon Ave., he said.

The girl told police a man she didn’t know approached her on Tremble Avenue near 13th Street, a few streets away from her home.

She said he grabbed her by the arm and put a knife to her throat. Rusnak said it was a pocketknife.

The man led her through yards to the Gordon Avenue house, walked her up the steps to the second floor and raped her, Rusnak said.

After the assault, the girl was able to kick the knife away and escape, police report.

Rusnak said the girl was able to give a detailed description of the man including the way he walked. Police believed they knew the suspect from her description.

Rusnak said the girl was sent to St. Elizabeth Health Center and subsequently to the Tri-County Children’s Advocacy Center in Youngstown for an examination.

When she returned in the afternoon, she picked Hudson out of a photo lineup, Rusnak said.

Rusnak said the court was closed Monday because of the holiday, but the clerk of courts came in to help file charges against Hudson.

He said that police searched for Hudson into the evening with the help of a police dog from Struthers, and by 10 p.m. he was in custody.

He was found in an abandoned house at 144 Reed Ave. “that he squats in,” Rusnak said.

Schools Superintendent Thomas Robey said the school district is working with police to ensure students’ safety, and has offered counseling to the girl, her family and friends.

The girl is a sophomore at the high school. She has a 11‚Ñ2-mile walk to school from her home. The Campbell school district doesn’t bus ninth- through 12th-graders.

State law mandates busing for kindergarten through eighth-grade pupils who live more than two miles away from their schools, but does not require districts to bus ninth- through 12-graders.

Robey said discussions about providing busing for students who live farther away is “always an option.”

For now, he said, the district is trying to focus on the short term “to work through this very, very terrible situation.”

starmack@vindy.com