Man sentenced in cold case rapes

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) - Police say a man has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for raping two Virginia Beach mothers in the early 1990s.

According to Macie Pridgen with the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, 53-year-old Todd Antwone Clark of Virginia Beach was sentenced to two life terms, all suspended with 45 years left to serve. Clark pleaded guilty in March 2012.

Pridgen says Clark entered a home on South Palm Avenue during the middle of the night in June 1990, and raped a 6-month pregnant mother of two. He allegedly held a knife to her throat before sexually assaulting her and told her, 'Don't do anything stupid or I'm gonna kill all three of you.'

The woman's phones were stolen and Clark had dumped the knife in a neighbor's yard.

Pridgen says Clark struck again in August 1991, when he again entered the home of a Virginia Beach mother in the middle of the night, this time on South Kentucky Avenue, and sexually assaulted her. Pridgen says the woman was on her way to check on her sleeping baby when she saw Clark holding a butcher knife from her kitchen, approaching her.

Clark forced the woman to her room and raped her. Various items and cash were stolen from the woman's home.

The cases remained unsolved until 1998-1999 when the Virginia Beach Police Department re-submitted the victims' physical evidence recovery kits (PERK) in hopes of finding a suspect. The DNA matched Clark's, which was already in the system.

Clark's criminal record dates back to 1979 and includes convictions for attempted breaking and entering, burglary, statutory burglary, breaking and entering, escape from custody, hit and run, attempted rape, failure to register as a sex offender, obtaining money by false pretenses, possession of a schedule I or II drug and "an array of misdemeanors."