DNA testing solves decades-old rape cases in Cobb County
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COBB COUNTY, GA (WGCL) — Cobb District Attorney Joyette M. Holmes has announced that advanced genetic genealogy testing has solved three rape cases that occurred in southeast Cobb County in 1999.
Holmes says the three rapes occurred between June and October of 1999 at separate locations within a three-mile radius. All of them happened during the pre-dawn hours.
All three victims submitted DNA samples but none of them matched anyone in CODIS, the combined DNA Index System.
In early 2019, the profile was obtained and submitted to Parabon NanoLabs, who determined a potential ancestor of the rapist, then built the genetic tree forward, ultimately highlighting a possible suspect.
From there, the Cobb SAKI team and Cold Case Unit researched that individual’s background and found not only that he lived in metro Atlanta at the time of the crimes, but had arrests for charges that include peeping tom, indecent exposure, and burglary incidents in Cobb and Gwinnett counties around the time of the rapes. Some of those crimes were also committed in the same vicinity as the rapes.
In December 2019, two investigators traveled to Arkansas, where Arkansas State Police assisted in executing a search warrant to collect a known sample of the man’s DNA for comparison. In an interview after the sample was collected, the suspect denied committing any sexual assaults.
As investigators returned to Cobb the following day, they learned from Arkansas investigators that the suspect had gone missing and was soon found deceased.
The GBI’s Forensic Biology Section expedited testing of the DNA collected from the suspect, Lorinzo Novoa Williams, 48, and it indeed matched the profile from the 1999 rape kits.
“I am incredibly proud, not only of my team in the DA’s Office, but everyone who helped get us here,” DA Holmes said in a press release. “Even if it takes 20 years, we refuse to give up.”
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