STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (TCN) — Authorities recently identified and arrested a suspect who raped a woman and stabbed her and her brother to death in 1990.
According to the DeKalb County District Attorney's Office, on July 15, 1990, DeKalb County police responded to an apartment complex in response to a possible stabbing and found Pamela Sumter in a neighboring apartment. She told police she had been raped and stabbed and that her brother, John Sumter, had also been stabbed.
Police found John Sumpter dead in the apartment where he lived with his sister, genetic genealogy company Othram Inc. said in a news release. Pamela Sumpter was taken to the hospital, where medical staff used a rape kit to collect DNA from the suspect. While at the hospital, she said her brother had brought her a new acquaintance from Detroit, but she didn’t know much about him.
District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Claire Chaffins told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigators that she believed John Sumpter had been showing Kenneth Perry around the area since he had recently moved from Michigan. Pamela Sumpter likely woke up when her brother and Perry returned, and that was reportedly the last time she saw him alive.
Pamela Sumpter told authorities she was beaten and stabbed, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She saw her brother on the floor of her apartment and ran to a neighbor's house to call law enforcement.
Pamela Sumpter eventually died from her injuries in a hospital on August 5, 1990. Despite the investigation, the case was closed.
In November 2022, more than 30 years later, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) submitted the rape kit DNA evidence to a private lab, where investigators developed a DNA profile of the male suspect. According to the district attorney’s office, there was no match in the statewide DNA database.
In February, the District Attorney's Office, with assistance from the GBI, conducted a nationwide search to find cases matching a 1992 sexual assault case in Detroit that went unindicted. The District Attorney's Office also worked with Othram to try to identify the suspect.
Othram developed a new investigative lead and compared it to the 1992 sexual assault case, which led investigators to Perry, 55, as the suspect.
The DeKalb County Sheriff's Office took Perry into custody on June 6. Officials collected a DNA sample and found it matched the DNA from a 1990 rape kit.
A jury on Tuesday, June 25, indicted Perry on two counts of malice murder, two counts of felonious murder, rape, four counts of aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of possession of a knife during the commission of a felonious crime and theft. Perry is being held in the DeKalb County Jail without bond.
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