Kidnapping, assault suspect surrenders to Cary police

Adrian Atwater, of Grove Wood Drive in Raleigh, is charged with second-degree forcible sexual offense, second-degree kidnapping and felony strangulation.

If convicted of all charges, he could face five to 25 years in prison, according to police. He was being held at the Wake County Public Safety Center.

Police began searching for Atwater on Tuesday after a 25-year-old Cary man reported being held hostage in his apartment for about eight hours.

The unidentified man went to the management office of Merriwood Apartments, on Merriwood Drive off SE Maynard Road, on Tuesday morning to call for help.

The man told investigators that he had been locked in the bedroom and that a man he knew physically and sexually assaulted him.

"(He) kept me in my apartment for nine hours. He's beat me, and he raped me as well," the man told the 911 dispatcher. "He went to go to the bathroom, and I ran."

The man was taken to WakeMed Cary Hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

Atwater was released from prison on Sept. 4 after serving nine months for a Wake County conviction on assault by strangulation, felony breaking and entering and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill charges, according to state Department of Correction records.

He also was convicted in Durham County in 2002 of felonious restraint, assault on a female, assault with a deadly weapon and communicating threats and in Guilford County in 1999 of assault on a female and communicating threats, records show.