WFCN – Officials announced on Wednesday that a Georgia man was connected to the 1990 fatal stabbings of a woman and her brother in their suburban Atlanta apartment through DNA from a decades-old rape kit.
According to the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office, Kenneth Perry, 55, was charged with many charges of malice murder, aggravated assault, and other offenses in connection with the murders of Pamela Sumpter, 43, and John Sumpter, 46.
Perry was additionally accused by the prosecutor’s office of raping Pamela Sumpter.
Victims of murder John Sumpter and Pamela
Both John Sumpter and Pamela.Sherry Boston, the district attorney for DeKalb County, via Facebook
According to court documents, Perry was detained this month and was charged on Tuesday.
According to the announcement, he is charged with assaulting the siblings on July 15, 1990, in their Stone Mountain, Georgia, home after John Sumpter brought the man to their apartment. Stone Mountain is located around 17 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta.
According to a press release from the DA, Pamela Sumpter was hospitalized after surviving the attack. According to the statement, she gave a thorough description of Perry in an interview with the authorities, describing him as a relative of her brother that she knew very little about.
According to the prosecutor’s office, medical staff gathered a rape kit with the attacker’s DNA while she was in the hospital. On August 5, 1990, Pamela Sumpter passed away from her wounds, and the matter was closed.
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According to the prosecutor’s office, this year a sample from the kit uploaded to a national database matched DNA from a 1992 Michigan sexual assault that went unpunished. In that instance, the victim named Perry, her ex-boyfriend, as the culprit.
The reason the case was not prosecuted was unclear. A district attorney’s representative directed NBC News to the Wayne County, Michigan, prosecutor’s office, which did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Perry was apprehended by authorities and his DNA was immediately compared to the material gathered from Pamela Sumpter’s rape kit after a genetic genealogy firm connected DNA from the kit to a “family network that could include” Perry, according to the prosecutor’s office.
According to the news release, officials discovered the samples matched on June 20.
According to facility records, Perry is being held without bond at the DeKalb County Jail.
Perry’s attorney stated that his client does not constitute a serious threat or risk of obstructing justice in a motion submitted on Monday, requesting that a reasonable bond be established for potential pretrial release.
A request for comment on Wednesday was met with no immediate response from the attorney.