Penn. man arrested in 1993 rape case after DNA linked him to assault
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KATE FELDMAN
New York Daily News |
Oct 16, 2019
Jeffrey King was arrested in a 1993 rape case. (Newark Police Department)
More than 25 years after a 22-year-old woman was raped in Delaware, her alleged attacker is behind bars.
Jeffrey King, a 54-year-old man from Coatesville, Penn., has been indicted for the 1993 rape after his DNA was linked to the decades-old rape kit, the Newark Police Department and the Delaware attorney general announced Tuesday.
The victim, who claimed she was raped just before 3 a.m. near Hill Park in Newark on Aug. 4, 1993, immediately reported the rape, but police were never able to match her description to a suspect.
The break in the investigation came after the case was reopened about two years ago as as part of Delaware’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, a project intended to test previously untested rape kits.
The DNA didn’t match anyone in the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), so officials sent the evidence to a private lab, which matched the DNA through phenotyping, a process that predicts physical appearance and ancestry through the genetic material. The DNA profile, which includes eye color, hair color, skin color and freckling, was then used to narrow down a suspect list.
King, who was 28 at the time, was on the list and, in August, detectives collected a “discarded item” with his DNA and matched it to the sample from the rape," Newark police said in a statement.
“This is a case that will now be prosecuted in the criminal justice system," Attorney General Kathleen Jennings said in a statement.
"But the work done on it to this point illustrates that the process of evaluating old criminal cases and evidence kits is showing results. It illustrates that there are police and prosecutors who are working towards justice every day, even in cases that may have seemed cold. And it tells 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.”
King was taken into custody in Coatesville on Oct. 3, then posted bail and turned himself in to the Newark Police Department on Oct. 10.
NY Daily News - We are currently unavailable in your region
KATE FELDMAN
New York Daily News |
Oct 16, 2019
Jeffrey King was arrested in a 1993 rape case. (Newark Police Department)
More than 25 years after a 22-year-old woman was raped in Delaware, her alleged attacker is behind bars.
Jeffrey King, a 54-year-old man from Coatesville, Penn., has been indicted for the 1993 rape after his DNA was linked to the decades-old rape kit, the Newark Police Department and the Delaware attorney general announced Tuesday.
The victim, who claimed she was raped just before 3 a.m. near Hill Park in Newark on Aug. 4, 1993, immediately reported the rape, but police were never able to match her description to a suspect.
The break in the investigation came after the case was reopened about two years ago as as part of Delaware’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, a project intended to test previously untested rape kits.
The DNA didn’t match anyone in the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), so officials sent the evidence to a private lab, which matched the DNA through phenotyping, a process that predicts physical appearance and ancestry through the genetic material. The DNA profile, which includes eye color, hair color, skin color and freckling, was then used to narrow down a suspect list.
King, who was 28 at the time, was on the list and, in August, detectives collected a “discarded item” with his DNA and matched it to the sample from the rape," Newark police said in a statement.
“This is a case that will now be prosecuted in the criminal justice system," Attorney General Kathleen Jennings said in a statement.
"But the work done on it to this point illustrates that the process of evaluating old criminal cases and evidence kits is showing results. It illustrates that there are police and prosecutors who are working towards justice every day, even in cases that may have seemed cold. And it tells 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.”
King was taken into custody in Coatesville on Oct. 3, then posted bail and turned himself in to the Newark Police Department on Oct. 10.
