Wichita man charged with brutal assault on massage worker pleads guilty to 12 crimes
A Wichita man who police say sexually assaulted at knife point and threatened to kill a massage worker at a south Wichita business last March — an attack halted only when a customer walked into the lobby — has pleaded guilty to 12 of 18 charges tied to it and other cases.
Arden W. Vanhorn, who has been in custody at the Sedgwick County Jail since shortly after the March 14, 2021, attack, pleaded guilty Tuesday. The 33-year-old will be sentenced on March 24 on one count each of attempted aggravated criminal sodomy, attempted rape, criminal threat and sexual battery; four counts of aggravated battery; two counts of aggravated assault; and two counts of lewd and lascivious behavior, according to court records and the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.
Police have said Vanhorn went into a business on East Harry where the woman was working, insisted on receiving a massage and then brutally sexually assaulted, choked, held a knife to her throat and repeatedly beat her after she took him into a massage room. The attack continued in the lobby of the business after Vanhorn forced her there to get water, according to his arrest affidavit.
Another man who walked into the business to get a massage interrupted the attack, allowing the woman to escape. She later identified Vanhorn as her attacker from a photo lineup. Video evidence also showed him entering and leaving the business where the assault took place, the affidavit says.
Tuesday’s plea also convicts Vanhorn of charges connected to a January 2021 lewd and lascivious case where he exposed himself at an East Harry business, a February 2021 sexual battery case where he touched a woman and exposed himself to her, and a March 2021 incident at a southeast Wichita gas station where he allegedly stole food and threatened to slit a man’s throat with a butcher knife, records show.
He remains in the Sedgwick County Jail in lieu of $330,000 bond while awaiting sentencing, records show.
