UDPD solve rape case after three years of evidence gathering

It took three years to gather all the evidence, but charges in an alleged Upper Darby Township rape case have been filed and police have acted on related warrants for an arrest.

According to police, on Saturday, April 15, 2023, around 4:50 p.m., the Upper Darby Township Police were called from the Bryn Mawr Hospital where a nurse relayed that a female victim, age 21 at the time, came into the emergency room asking for a sexual assault collection kit be completed, as she believed she had been raped. By 7:41 p.m., the rape kit was collected, and police responded to the ER to obtain a recorded statement from the woman, police said.

According to an affidavit of probable cause, police said that the woman explained that on Friday, April 14, 2023, around 10:30 p.m., she and friends went to a bar called “Howl at the Moon,” located on the 200 block of South 15th Street in Philadelphia. (The bar has since closed, effective July 1, 2024, according to its Instagram.) There, the woman met two men, both of whom she described to police.

The victim told police that she left the bar with the two men in an unknown vehicle around 1:46 a.m., on Saturday, April 15, 2023. She then arrived at a home on the unit block of Brandon Road in Upper Darby Township around 2:08 a.m., said the affidavit. The victim said she had Life360 on her phone, so was able to provide exact times and the address. 

The woman additionally told police that the two men had sexually assaulted her both in the car and in a home while she was intoxicated and did not give consent. She said that she woke up on April 15, 2023, in the home and “didn’t know where she was,” said the affidavit. She said she woke up “on a bed in the kitchen of the residence” without her pants and next to a condom. One of the men was still at the home when she awoke. He called the second man, and spoke over FaceTime. The second man called the woman an Uber around 10:30 a.m., and she left the home.

According to police, the woman said she took a nap when she returned home and reported to Bryn Mawr Hospital after she woke up. Police said the woman did not shower, change her clothes, or wash up (other than her hands) since she’d left the hospital and the rape kit was completed. The victim also provided police with a video she’d recorded inside and out of the home on Brandon Road, as well as a picture of one of the men, who’d told her his name was “Mark.”

Police said they were able to obtain the address because of the video. The department was also able to identify the man described as “Mark,” but that was not his legal name, via facial recognition and the woman’s photograph.

On April 19, 2023, police said that the woman reported to the Upper Darby Detective Division in order to show bruises that had formed inside her upper leg area after the incident. Police said they photographed these injuries. On the same date, UDTPD said they made contact with the two residents of the home they’d identified. Those adults told police they had an adult child, who was later identified as Jordan Bernard Gates, 29, now of the unit block of North McDade Boulevard in Darby.

Police said, at the time, the man lived with the parents on Brandon Road, and police were able to identify him as the “second” man involved in the incident. At that time, police said Gates lived with the residents and slept in an upstairs bedroom. The parents called Gates to the home, where the three all signed a Consent to Search of the home, police said.

As police searched, they said they recovered a used condom in the second-floor bedroom, which police said also contained kitchen counters, cabinets, a fridge, and mattress on the floor. The other man, now identified as Khalid Craddock, 29, also arrived at the home during the search, police said.

On May 5, 2023, police sent the condom to the Pennsylvania State Police laboratory for DNA testing. On June 6, 2023, Upper Darby police received a report that concluded that the DNA in the condom was a match to that of the rape kit. An Aug. 10, 2023 report from PSP concluded that three persons’ DNA was present in the submitted materials of the rape kit. The DNA of the submitted condom could “be included as a potential contributor” to those present in the kit testing.

On Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024, the Upper Darby police returned to the home on Brandon Road to obtain a buccal swab from Gates for further analysis. It was submitted to the PSP on Jan. 15 for further forensic testing. On Feb. 1, 2024, the police obtained the same from Craddock. 

On April 8, 2024, the DNA results confirmed both Craddock and Gates were “contributors” to DNA recovered via the victim’s rape kit. However, it was not until March 30, 2026, that a witness came forward for a recorded interview with Upper Darby Police. The witness said she and the victim had been drinking together the day of the incident, and she provided detailed descriptions of the amounts consumed before the two “took the train to the bar,” to Howl at the Moon in Philadelphia, police said.

The witness told police she did not see the victim leave, and that she did not note with whom she left. Police were able to deduct from the interview that the victim was, in fact, intoxicated and unable to consent to any sexual interaction.

Both Gates and Craddock are charged with felony counts of rape of an unconscious victim, sexual assault, aggravated individual assault, and indecent assault of a person that is unconscious. On April 13, 2026, just two days shy of the three-year mark of the incident, police issued a warrant for their arrest.

Gates was arrested and had his preliminary arraignment on Monday, April 27 at 10 a.m. Bail was set at $500,000 (unsecured). Craddock had not yet been arrested as of the time of publication.

Gates is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on May 7 before Magisterial District Judge Benjamin Johns.

All suspects and defendants are innocent until proven guilty. This story was compiled using public court records.