2nd Man Found Guilty in Fatal Carjacking Case

The second of two men charged with dragging a woman to her death during a carjacking was convicted Friday in a case that helped prompt Congress to declare the crime a felony.

Rodney Solomon, 27, was found guilty by the Baltimore County Circuit Court jury of first-degree murder and six other counts, making him eligible for the death penalty. Circuit Judge Dana Levitz scheduled the penalty phase of the trial to begin Tuesday.

The defense elected to have the jury, rather than Levitz, decide whether to impose a death sentence.

In closing arguments, the prosecution stressed testimony by witnesses that Solomon pulled Pam Basu from her car and drove away with her arm entangled in the seat belt, dragging her 1 1/2 miles. Prosecutor Michael Rexroad had urged the jury to find the Washington, D.C., man guilty of first-degree premeditated murder.

“Rodney Eugene Solomon savagely, viciously attacked Pam Basu, beat her, ripped her from her car, threw her to the ground, and with knowledge that she was attached to the car, drove away . . . virtually driving the life out of her,” Rexroad said.

Public Defender Samuel Truette pointed to inconsistencies in the accounts of state witnesses, whom he said testified about “what they would have liked to have seen.”

Truette told jurors that Solomon could be guilty of no more than second-degree murder, punishable by up to 30 years in prison, because a Washington teen-ager had admitted driving Basu’s BMW when she was dragged to death.

“Rodney Solomon did not intend for Pam Basu to die. He was not behind the wheel of that car. Bernard Miller was,” Truette said. Miller was convicted in April of first-degree murder.

Basu was forced from her car at a stop sign near her home in suburban Savage as she drove her 2-year-old daughter, Sarina, to her first day of preschool on Sept. 8, 1992. The 34-year-old research chemist struggled to reach her daughter in the back seat, but the carjackers sped away with her arm caught in the seat belt.