A Man Raped His Neighbor Then Offered To Do Yard Work To Make Up For It

A man has been sentenced to 50 years in jail for raping his neighbor at knifepoint and then offering to work on her yard to make up for it.

Timothy Walding, 20, was found guilty of sexual battery, false imprisonment, and armed burglary. According to an affidavit, Walding broke into a 35-year-old woman’s home in Boynton Beach, Florida, in 2017 and entered her bedroom wearing a mask. He then tied the woman up and held her at knifepoint before raping her.

Authorities say Walding told the woman he had picked her lock with a fish hook.

“You really should deadbolt your door because I didn’t really want to do this but I had to do it,” he added, according to court documents.

Walding also spoke to the woman for a while after the attack while still wearing the mask, including telling her she knew who he was. Eventually, the woman correctly guessed he was her neighbor, and he took off his mask to confirm.

When she asked why he did it, the court affidavit states Walding told her “obviously it wasn’t a spontaneous thing and I had this plan.”

Walding, who was 18 at the time, also told her she didn’t have to worry about seeing him again because he was going off to the military at the end of the month and offered to make it up to her by doing some yard work or by fixing something around her house, the affidavit states. When the woman turned him down, he asked her to “shake hands so he knows she was not going to say anything to anyone about this,” to which she agreed, according to the affidavit.