A Dauphin County judge has approved prosecutors’ request to withdraw the rape charges against Shymar McBride, ending a case that had been pending for six years. The woman who reported the assault, now an adult, was unavailable to proceed and said she did not believe a trial was best for her mental health, according to court filings described by PennLive. The action, known as a nolle prosse, closes the case; it is not a trial verdict.
Police alleged that McBride picked up the girl after she texted him in May 2020 that she had run away from a group home, took her to his Harrisburg apartment and raped her. She was 15 at the time. PennLive reported that she completed a rape kit five days after the alleged assault. McBride has not been found guilty of these charges and is presumed innocent.
The trial clock is not a simple one-year countdown
Pennsylvania Rule of Criminal Procedure 600 says a trial must begin within 365 days of the filing of a written complaint. The rule also provides for case-specific calculations, including time that may be excluded. The rule’s stated period alone does not establish whether it was met in this case; the available account does not provide the dates and calculations needed to assess that question. PennLive reported that the case experienced repeated delays, including time sought for plea negotiations, and that the woman’s health postponed a trial scheduled for May 2026.
The case account says the woman completed a rape kit, but does not establish when the evidence was submitted to a laboratory or whether it was tested. Those distinctions matter when comparing the case with statewide evidence figures: the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported 233 sexual-assault kits awaiting testing at the end of 2024. That statewide inventory does not show that this woman’s kit was among them or explain the outcome of her case.
The same department says state law requires testing to be completed within six months after evidence is submitted to an approved laboratory. That timeline begins at submission, not collection; without a submission date or case-specific testing information, the statewide requirement cannot explain the six-year span or the decision to end this prosecution.
