Source: TEK IMAGE/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty
A 54-year-old man who raped a woman over twenty years ago was finally arrested and charged this month. The sicko, whose name is Jeffrey King, probably thought he got away with it since so much time has gone by, but thankfully, with the help of new technology, Delaware is making progress in some of these cold cases.
From the NY Post:
A Pennsylvania man has been charged in connection to a 1993 sexual assault after investigators linked his DNA to the victim using a public genealogy website, authorities said. Jeffrey King, 54, of Coatesville, was busted on Oct. 3, some 26 years after a 22-year-old woman was attacked as she walked along a sidewalk in Newark, Delaware. The victim reported the sexual assault, telling investigators that the suspect also fled with her clothes and personal belongings, but no arrests were made, Newark police said Tuesday. The victim was taken to a hospital for a sex assault examination and a composite sketch was handed out to nearby residents, but King was never identified as a possible suspect, police said.
It seems Delaware has been combing through their old files to see if they get any hits.
That changed in late 2017 when Newark police reopened the case as part of Delaware’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, leading a detective assigned to the case sent the sexual assault kit to a private lab to identify possible DNA samples. Evidence in the kit indicated a male DNA profile, but King wasn’t identified at the time because his DNA was not in the FBI’s national DNA database, police said.
Here’s how they caught him:
The sample was then sent to a second lab in Virginia that specializes in DNA phenotyping – the process of predicting a person’s physical appearance and ancestry from unidentified genetic data. The DNA profile — which contained predictors on the subject’s ancestry, as well as the color of the man’s eyes, hair and skin – was then referenced against known DNA samples in various databases, including a public genealogy website, police said. King, who was 28 years old at the time and had connections to Newark, was among the list of suspects provided by Parabon Nanolabs. Detectives then collected an item with King’s DNA on it that he threw away as they conducted surveillance on him beginning in August, Newark police said.
Authorities reportedly watched him discard an item, retrieved it, then collected DNA evidence from it. Lo and behold, his DNA profile matched the 1993 sample. The NY Post reports he’s been charged with two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse and is currently out on bail.
“It illustrates that there are police and prosecutors who are working towards justice every day, even in cases that may have seemed cold,” Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings said, according to the site. “And it tell survivors that when they come forward to report a rape or sexual assault, we will do everything we can to support them and seek justice on their behalf.”
We are glad the sexual assault survivor in this case is finally getting a little justicve.
