A South Carolina jury has found a convicted sex offender not guilty of raping two teenage girls in an underground room he built behind his house. Kenneth Hinson had been charged with kidnapping, sex crimes and assault with intent to kill. Hinson appeared to cry after the verdict was read. Jurors had deliberated for about four hours over two days. 

Prosecutors alleged he took two girls to an underground room, bound them with duct tape, raped them and left them to die because the room had no air supply. The girls said they managed to free themselves and escape.

Hinson said the sex was consensual and that he hid in the bunker because he thought police wanted him on drug charges. He testified that he built the room to package marijuana.

Had he been found guilty, Hinson would have faced a mandatory life sentence without parole because he was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl in 1991.