‘Accountability Has Finally Caught Up With You’: Parkville Man Sentenced to Two Life Terms in Serial Rape Case

James Shipe Sr, the bearded elderly man at the defendant’s table, showed little reaction Monday when a Baltimore County jury found him guilty of breaking into the apartments of two young women in the Cockeysville area and raping them in the 1980s.

But the women, both now in their 60s, could not remain stoic as they sat in the front row of the courtroom gallery. As they heard the word “guilty” over and over, they cried and made small gestures of long-awaited relief.

“This has been a miracle in my life,” said one victim, who was assaulted in 1986 in her Barretts Delight Drive apartment. “Never ever could I even imagine … that this would have happened. That I could see him again and that I would be able to face this.”

Baltimore County police say Shipe, 73, of Parkville, was a serial rapist when he was in his 30s. With the help of decades-old DNA, Shipe was arrested in 2023 and charged with breaking into ground-floor apartments and sexually assaulting five young women who were home alone in the Cockeysville area.

Less than two hours after the jury delivered its verdict, Circuit Court Judge Garret Glennon sentenced Shipe to two consecutive life terms in prison.

Shipe, who at sentencing had changed from dress clothes into orange jail scrubs, declined to address the court, telling his attorney, “I don’t even know what to say.”

Both victims testified against Shipe and addressed him before sentencing.

A woman who was sexually assaulted in 1982 in her apartment on Windy Cliff Place said that although Shipe claimed he didn’t remember anything about the attacks, she is certain all his victims remember.

“I have to wonder how many other young women are out there that were victimized,” she said, “the ones that didn't get a chance to tell their story.”

She said that despite the torment and hurt Shipe put the victims through, “we are strong, resilient women, and we have persevered.”

Charging documents describe a series of crimes beginning in 1978 in which a man entered ground-floor apartments through unlocked doors or windows, covered the mouths of women he found inside, threatened them and sexually assaulted them. In three cases, the rapist disconnected landline phones in the homes before leaving.

“I am not what you did to me,” said the woman Shipe assaulted on Barretts Delight Drive. “Today, accountability has finally caught up with you. And I leave this courtroom stronger than before.”

Defense attorney Joe Pappafotis had asked the judge to take into consideration his client’s age and failing health. He said Shipe is married to a woman he met in 1987 and that Shipe’s wife has described their relationship as “good and peaceful.”

He asked Glennon to impose concurrent sentences — terms that run at the same time — rather than consecutive terms that run one after another.

Assistant State’s Attorney John Magee asked the judge to sentence Shipe exactly as he would have if Shipe were still a young man.

“The James Shipe that sits here today is the very same James Shipe that raped both of them, and he should be sentenced exactly how he would have been sentenced as an early-30-year-old defendant,” Magee said.

Magee said there are other victims whose cases have been linked to Shipe by DNA, but some are now deceased. After the sentencing, the state sought a postponement in one of case with a surviving victim.

Glennon sentenced Shipe to two consecutive life terms for the first-degree rape convictions and concurrent sentences totaling 100 years for two counts of first-degree burglary and five other sex-offense convictions.