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TV Tip Show Points Police To Rape Suspect

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By NEIL JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 17, 2008

Updated: 02/17/2008 01:43 pm

TAMPA - TAMPA - Following two tips, Tampa police and U.S. marshals arrested a man wanted for rape in Maryland hours after the America's Most Wanted television program aired a segment about him.

Marshals arrested Jacob Corey Gordon, 28, at his apartment on Two Lakes Road about 1:20 a.m. Sunday. He was taken into custody without incident, said Tampa Police Lt. Diane Hobley-Burney.

Jacob Gordon

The U.S. Marshal's Tampa Bay Area Fugitive Task Force asked Tampa police for help after getting two tips from the program that Gordon was in the Tampa Bay area.

Gordon is being held in the Hillsborough County Jail on Orient Road. He's charged in Maryland with first degree rape in a 2001 abduction and rape of a woman.

According to the program's Web site, one of the tips received after the broadcast at 10 p.m. Saturday detailed where Gordon worked and that he lived in an apartment across the street.

When Gordon opened the door to his apartment to talk to one Tampa police officer, marshals forced their way in, Hobley-Burney said.

The television program said Gordon and Thomas Heddinger offered to take the victim home from a concert on Oct. 19, 2001 and instead took her to a wooded area and raped her for three hours.

The U.S. Marshal's Office said in a release that Heddinger committed suicide on Feb. 9 while waiting trial on the rape charge.

The arrest report said Gordon was identified by his Maryland driver license.

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