By Celina Tebor, Gili Remen and Nouran Salahieh | CNN
A Michigan man is dealing with felony fees after DNA from a espresso cup linked him to 2 rapes in several states from greater than 20 years in the past, a prosecutor stated.
Kurt Alan Rillema, 51, was arrested final week and arraigned in Michigan on fees of first- and second-degree legal sexual conduct. He additionally faces felony fees in Pennsylvania, in response to court docket paperwork.
The costs are the most recent stemming from advances in investigative genetic family tree main authorities to a suspect in a decades-old chilly case.
The primary rape Rillema is accused of was reported at a golf course in Michigan in 1999. Somebody got here in via an employee-only door and sexually assaulted a younger lady who was working on the course’s meals stand, stated Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard at a information convention final week.
Investigators on the time obtained DNA however didn’t have a suspect, the sheriff stated.
Then, one other rape was reported in 2000 at a golf course at Penn State College, the place a lady was attacked whereas she was jogging and raped at knife level, court docket paperwork say.
Investigators in each states, who had submitted DNA samples to a nationwide database, bought a match linking the assaults to the identical suspect, Bouchard stated.
“Now you’ve bought individuals which are victims in several elements of the nation with the identical form of M.O., each on a golf course,” the sheriff stated.
It wasn’t till years later — because of advances in genetic family tree — that investigators bought a lead.
Investigators in each states solicited the assistance of DNA expertise firm Parabon NanoLabs, which may use genetic family tree and different analysis strategies to search out suspects utilizing DNA by looking for kinfolk in public databases and constructing household timber.
The lab concluded it was seemingly considered one of three brothers who had been chargeable for each rapes, in response to Centre County First Assistant District Legal professional Sean McGraw.
Authorities had been capable of slim the checklist to Rillema after Michigan police obtained a DNA pattern by following him and taking his DNA from a Styrofoam espresso cup, in response to McGraw.
“That was despatched off to the lab and the DNA taken from the espresso cup matched the DNA of the perpetrator of the 1999 and 2000 rapes,” McGraw instructed CNN.
Rillema was ordered to be held in a county jail in Michigan with out bond till a possible trigger convention on Thursday, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Workplace stated.
If convicted of first-degree legal sexual conduct in Michigan, he may withstand life in jail, the sheriff’s workplace stated.
In Pennsylvania, he faces fees of rape by forcible compulsion, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault, illegal restraint, easy assault and recklessly endangering one other individual, McGraw stated.
Rillema has been arraigned and pleaded not responsible, his lawyer, Deanna Kelley, stated in an announcement to CNN. “Relating to the allegations: There are two sides to each story and Mr. Rillema seems ahead to telling his,” Kelley stated.
Rillema’s subsequent court docket look in Michigan is Thursday. Pennsylvania and Michigan authorities are within the strategy of discussing the timing of the respective trials, in response to McGraw.
Bouchard described Rillema as “an avid golfer” who apparently performed everywhere in the US. The sheriff requested anybody who was sufferer of an identical crime at a golf course to name their native police division.
The arrest was made doable by advances in expertise, Bouchard stated.
“Lots has modified since 1999,” the sheriff stated. “Investigators labored aspect by aspect … and located an individual that clearly wasn’t on our radar for any motive, has no legal historical past, however now has been positively recognized in two very violent sexual encounters.”
It isn’t the primary time DNA from a espresso cup led investigators to a chilly case suspect in Pennsylvania: A person was charged final yr with the stabbing dying of a 19-year-old lady from 1975 after investigators bought his DNA from a cup he used and threw right into a trash can at an airport, authorities stated.