A nearly decade-old rape case has been solved with the help of DNA evidence.
“After almost two decades, the Kentucky State Police Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) investigative team and the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) announced that a sexual assault cold case from 2005 involving a 17-year-old from Jefferson County has been solved,” state police said.
On January 11, 2005, the female victim reported to Louisville police that she had been kidnapped at gunpoint and raped, police said. DNA evidence from the victim’s sexual assault kit, also known as a rape kit, was entered into the Combined DNA Index System, but no match was identified.
Through grant funding received by the U.S. Department of Justice, state police and Louisville police conducted additional testing on DNA obtained from 47-year-old Robrico English, with English’s DNA identified as a match.
English, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence at the Eastern Kentucky Correctional Complex for a first-degree robbery conviction in 2019, was charged in the case with kidnapping and rape.
“KSP and our LMPD partners never gave up on seeking justice in this case,” KSP SAKI Investigator Ben Wolcott said in a press release. “Today’s announcement speaks to the unending commitment to deliver justice to victims of sexual assault, even if that justice happens decades after the crime occurred. Delayed justice is still justice served.”
(Photo: Robrico English)
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
