It was an odd smell coming from his children?s bedroom in the middle of the night that told a Dundalk father that something was wrong.
When the dad entered the bedroom of his 6-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son on Monday at 2:30 a.m., he found a strange man ? who apparently had drugged the children ? trying to hide in a wardrobe, police said.
Richard Marks, 49, ran out of the house, but the father chased him and held him until police arrived, according to Baltimore County police.
Marks tried to fight them off when they arrived but was ultimately subdued, according to police.
After the incident, police described the boy as “lethargic and confused.”
Parents found two rags with a strong chemical smell where the two children had been sleeping. The same chemical odor was found in the children?s hair, police said. Detectives also said a man had been seen by one of the children two days earlier in their back yard, but he fled.
Police searched Marks? Dundalk home, where they found binoculars, rubber gloves, pornographic literature and information on various chemicals and drugs ? including GHB, informally known as the “date rape drug.”
Marks is currently in custody facing several charges, including an attempted sex offense against a 9-year-old boy, burglary, assault, assault against a police officer and resisting arrest.
“He?s been known to hang around and size things up in the past in some previous burglaries,” Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey said.
