Latest news with #SexualAssaultKitInitiative
Miami Herald
02-06-2025
- Miami Herald
Quick-thinking woman and DNA solve cold case sexual assault, NM officials say
A man accused of sexually assaulting a woman more than a decade ago has been convicted, New Mexico prosecutors said. Omar Navarro-Flores was convicted in the 2014 cold case sexual assault of a woman, the Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office said in a May 30 Facebook post. Navarro-Flores pleaded not guilty at his June 2019 arraignment, court documents show. In a June 2 email to McClatchy News, Assistant Public Defender Graham Dumas, Navarro-Flores' attorney, noted that his client's conviction came during a retrial 'after he was acquitted in November of a number of very serious offenses.' 'The Defense stand by our argument that he was denied a fair trial by the incredibly poor police investigation into the case. The police, who allowed this case to lie dormant for five years, did not even try to locate critical witnesses or surveillance footage from the street corner where Mr. Navarro-Flores first allegedly encountered (the woman),' Dumas said. 'By the time this case was indicted in 2019, no amount of defense investigation could address that issue.' As a woman was walking to a bus stop May 6, 2014, a man grabbed her and 'threw her in his car,' prosecutors said. The man drove around Albuquerque with the woman, threatening 'she would never see her children again,' prosecutors said. He sexually assaulted and physically attacked her, 'hitting her head against the steering wheel, and slapping her,' according to prosecutors. During the alleged attack, the woman managed to write down the man's license plate number on her wrist, prosecutors said. After being dropped off at the State Fairgrounds area, the woman contacted security, who 'called police and an ambulance,' prosecutors said. The woman gave police the license plate number from her wrist, prosecutors said. Days later, officers pulled Navarro-Flores over, then 'his car was towed and searched,' prosecutors said. DNA ultimately linked Navarro-Flores to the alleged sexual assault, according to prosecutors. He was arrested in June 2019, court records show. On May 30, a jury found Navarro-Flores guilty of criminal sexual contact and false imprisonment, prosecutors said. 'We will continue to fight for Mr. Navarro-Flores at sentencing, and on appeal if he so chooses,' Dumas said. Navarro-Flores' conviction comes after the city of Albuquerque established a project to test a backlog of rape kits per the direction of Mayor Tim Keller's 2018 executive order, the city says on its website. 'The implementation of The Sexual Assault Evidence Kit Backlog Reduction Project is the first step to correcting oversights and changing the course of action for the future,' the website says. Between 2017 and 2020, more than 4,500 backlogged sexual assault evidence kits were tested, data on the city's website shows. 'As part of a coordinated effort to address Albuquerque's backlog of untested, Sexual Assault Kit cases,' the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative was also formed, according to the district attorney's website. 'The SAKI Team, a dedicated group of attorneys, investigators and victim advocates, is tasked with reviewing, testing and prosecuting rape kit backlog cases and working with victims to build cases and provide them with supportive services and resources,' the website says. The district attorney's office SAKI unit, which has had 24 cold case rape convictions in two years, prosecuted Navarro-Flores' case, prosecutors said.
Miami Herald
08-05-2025
- Miami Herald
Worker raped woman in store basement, Oregon officials say. He's convicted
A man accused of raping a woman in the basement of the store where he worked as a loss prevention officer is facing prison time a decade later, Oregon officials said. Daniel Luis Cassinelli was found guilty of first-degree rape and other charges in connection with the January 2015 assault, the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office said in an April 11 news release. Cassinelli faces at least eight years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced in July, according to prosecutors. McClatchy News reached out to his attorney for comment April 15 and was awaiting a response. Cassinelli, now 46, is accused of raping the woman during a shift at a Rite Aid drugstore in the Portland area, prosecutors said. He caught the woman shoplifting and took her to a basement office and raped her, according to prosecutors. Afterward, he 'walked the victim to the surveillance room where he showed her the cameras and explained he had been watching her for quite some time,' prosecutors said. He told her to keep quiet and he wouldn't report her, according to prosecutors. The woman took a bus to a neighboring city and disclosed the assault to a transit officer, prosecutors said, adding that police investigated and identified Cassinelli. However, 'the victim eventually separated from the case because of life circumstances and the case went cold,' according to prosecutors. But in 2021, a detective revived it thanks to a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant, prosecutors said. The detective 'got in contact with the victim,' and she 'gave another account that was largely consistent,' prosecutors said. He also looked at video, including footage that showed Cassinelli and the woman going into the office, prosecutors said. 'They are in the office for over 20 minutes. Records from Rite Aid show that the defendant had stopped the victim in two prior instances and wrote reports for those contacts, however, no report was written for this lengthy interaction during the assault,' prosecutors said, adding that 'the defendant would have been in violation of policy by being alone with a female in the office and by not writing a report.' Enough evidence was collected 'to bring an indictment and trial,' prosecutors said. In the news release, Deputy District Attorney Quinn Zemel said 'victims, no matter their background or life circumstances deserve to be believed, and will be believed.' Zemel added that it is 'never too late for justice.'
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Yahoo
Texas Rangers, local police help serve justice to serial child rapist
May 1—AUSTIN — The man responsible for sex crimes against two young girls in Texas and Arizona will now spend the rest of his life behind bars. Nearly 40 years after the first of the two crimes was committed, a Rusk County Grand Jury gave David Roy Mundt, 62, of Longview, Texas, that sentence last week, a Texas Department of Public Safety news release said. According to the release, on Oct. 28, 1992, a male suspect — now identified as Mundt — broke into a home in Rusk County and dragged a 7-year-old girl from her bed, sexually assaulting her in the backyard of the residence before fleeing. DNA collected during the investigation was submitted to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) — a national database to check for possible DNA matches between arrestees and unsolved cases nationwide — through the Texas Department of Public Safety's (DPS) Crime Laboratory Division. Despite the Henderson Police Department's continued investigation, a suspect was never identified, and no arrest was ever made. Then, in December 2022, the DPS Crime Laboratory in Garland notified the Texas Rangers of a possible DNA match between the 1992 Texas case and a similar kidnapping and child sexual assault cold case from 1986 in Phoenix, Ariz. The Texas Rangers began coordinating with the Phoenix Police Department and determined DNA samples from the 1986 case were eligible for Advanced DNA testing and genealogy research through Bode Technologies. On June 15, 2024, that testing and research identified two brothers as possible suspects. The first brother was eventually ruled out because his DNA was already in the CODIS database and would have previously produced a positive match. Investigators then obtained a DNA sample from the second brother, David Roy Mundt, for testing and comparison through DPS' Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) program. The program is funded by the Department of Justice/Bureau of Justice Assistance (DOJ/BJA), which provides investigative funding for agencies across the United States to further unsolved sexual assaults and sexually related homicides, aiming to bring justice to the victims and their families. Using SAKI grant funds, the sample collected from David Roy Mundt was sent to Bode Technologies for expedited DNA testing, which gave a positive match. On Aug. 7, 2024, the Texas Rangers, Texas Highway Patrol and Longview Police Department arrested Mundt at his home in Gregg County, Texas. In August 2024, Mundt was indicted by a Rusk County grand jury on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child in the 1992 Texas case, and on April 25, 2025, he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. Cases like these highlight the importance of collaborative investigative work between the Texas Rangers and partner law enforcement agencies to bring justice and closure to victims and their families in unsolved crimes. The department would like to specifically thank the Henderson Police Department, Phoenix Police Department, Longview Police Department, DPS' Crime Laboratory in Garland and Bode Technologies for their dedication that ultimately led to the identification and arrest of the suspect.
USA Today
01-05-2025
- USA Today
He's serving life in prison for murder. But his DNA wasn't at the scene.
He's serving life in prison for murder. But his DNA wasn't at the scene. Show Caption Hide Caption 'Victims deserve to know': Untested rape kits in Wichita In Wichita, Kansas, officials set out to clear a backlog of untested rape kits and give victims answers. Years later, many are still waiting. This video was updated to add new information. Prosecutors said Stephen Yarborough was sexually assaulted, then fatally stabbed in his Roxboro, N.C. home in 2007. The house was filled with physical evidence: A bloody palm print. Blood on his eyeglasses. Stains on his underwear. Two cigarette butts from an ashtray that had spilled onto the floor. Much of that evidence was tested for DNA. None of it matched the man serving life in prison for the crime. When the victim's rape kit was finally analyzed with the latest technology 15 years later, Dominaque Thorpe's DNA wasn't there, either. But under North Carolina law, those results haven't helped him at all. That's because a state law says it's up to a judge to decide whether the results of post-conviction DNA tests are 'favorable' or 'unfavorable' to the defense. If a judge finds them unfavorable, the conviction and sentence stand. Similar laws are on the books in 20 other states. In Thorpe's case, no foreign DNA at all was found in the victim's rape kit. After he "considered the testimony, ... considered the exhibits offered by the state and the defendant, considered all submissions of the parties and the arguments of counsel, and reviewed the official file," North Carolina Superior Court Judge John M. Dunlow decided the lack of DNA was unfavorable. One of Thorpe's attorneys, Christine Mumma of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, says the absence of DNA is favorable because it undermines the theory of the case prosecutors presented to the jury. 'There was never a question in our minds that it was favorable given the state's theory of a violent oral and anal rape as part of this murder," she said. 'When we got the order, we were shocked and concerned that there was a bigger problem. I still am. There's no circumstance under which the results are unfavorable." Under state law, Thorpe can't appeal the judge's finding. On April 24, he petitioned the state Supreme Court to reverse it and classify the results as favorable. If it does, the original judge would be required to enter an order that 'serves the interest of justice,' such as ordering a new trial, dismissing the charges or handing down a new sentence. Thorpe's story illustrates the numerous roadblocks people who claim innocence in cases with backlogged rape kits can face, even in states such as North Carolina that have received federal grants to deal with the problem. Since 2015, the federal program, known as the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, has awarded about $350 million to 90 state and local agencies to test hundreds of thousands of untested and partially tested rape kits that had piled up nationwide for decades. Some of the agencies, including in North Carolina, used part of their grant funding to re-analyze partially tested kits with the latest technology. In many older cases, the evidence initially was screened using serology, a method that detects the presence of fluid such as semen. If there was a negative result, DNA testing was not done. That was common practice around the country in the early days of DNA technology, when more genetic material was needed to develop a DNA profile. Now, scientists need just a few cells from skin or even sweat to develop one. North Carolina has re-tested such kits in cold cases, leading to at least three convictions in Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte. But people claiming wrongful conviction can't access the new testing unless a judge approves. In some states, grant recipients have automatically tested backlogged kits despite a previous confession, guilty plea or conviction, or if the suspect's DNA already was in the national database. But North Carolina is among at least 10 states where that didn't happen. About 5% of North Carolina's overall backlog — 832 kits — were not tested because someone already had been convicted of the crime. There are no exceptions for inmates like Thorpe, who has steadfastly maintained his innocence. They must reach an agreement with the prosecution or get a court order for DNA testing. In Thorpe's case, the Center on Actual Innocence spent $11, 500 on the testing, Mumma said. 'They falsely put a charge on me for something I had no knowledge of,' Thorpe told USA TODAY in a December phone interview from prison. Before the 2016 trial that resulted in his conviction and life sentence, Thorpe (whose first name is sometimes spelled Dominique in records) refused a plea deal that would have allowed him to be released from prison after about 15 to 19 years. 'I didn't take it because I didn't do anything,' said Thorpe, who has resolved earlier criminal charges with plea agreements. 'I would have taken it if I would've done it, but I'm not taking a plea for something I didn't do.' Alternative suspects Back in August 2007, Yarborough lived in a white house near a convenience store in a rough area of the small town of Roxboro, North Carolina. Yarborough, 46, was a loving uncle to two nephews, once surprising them at Easter with baskets on their porch and eggs hidden around the yard, his sister testified at Thorpe's trial. Yarborough was also well-liked by his neighbors and by the people who worked with him at Pizza Hut and Dollar General. 'He was cool,' one woman recalled during Thorpe's trial. 'He was the dollar store man. If you needed something at the dollar store, he was there. He would bring broken things home or things that were outdated. He would give them to us for real cheap prices.' Another witness testified about Yarborough's generosity. 'Steve was a good person,' the man recalled. 'He would give the shirt off his back.' Yarborough's body was discovered in the bathtub of his home around 5 p.m. August 26, 2007. He had been stabbed 20 times and his body had begun to decompose. Blood throughout the house led police to believe Yarborough was killed in the living room and dragged into the bathroom. A former boyfriend, Maurice Paylor, reported finding the body. The lead investigators on the case, Keith Daye of the Roxboro Police Department and Phillip Stevens of the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation, questioned Paylor at least six times. They learned that Paylor and Yarborough had gotten into a fistfight in the parking lot of the Dollar General shortly before the murder. By then, Paylor had a girlfriend. Yarborough told the woman about his past relationship with Paylor, and Paylor punched Yarborough several times, police and court records show. Police got warrants to search the woman's house, where Paylor was living, and her car, but found nothing tying him to the murder. 'If we wanted to really charge somebody and had a good case, it would have been Maurice Paylor,' said Daye, who now investigates homicides for the Granville County Sheriff's Office. 'We had so much circumstantial evidence against Maurice. I told him, 'I could charge you right now and get a conviction.'' But there was no physical evidence and no motive, Daye told USA TODAY. 'Maurice loved that guy,' Daye said. 'And Steve was the gravy train. Anything Maurice needed, he would call Steve.' The DNA of a second suspect, Winston Williams, was found on one of the cigarette butts. Another man's DNA was found on the other. Williams had been living with Yarborough until June 2007. Yarborough kicked him out for letting people smoke crack in the house, and Williams threatened Yarborough with a knife, according to police and court records. Williams told police he hadn't been inside the house since. If that's true, it means no one had emptied the ashtray for two-and-a-half months. The stains on the victim's underwear didn't contain enough DNA for a full profile, but the partial one developed from them did not exclude Williams, who was not charged. It did exclude Thorpe, the man convicted. Later, while Williams was in prison for a different crime, a man who had shared a cell with him wrote a letter to the district attorney, saying Williams seemed very interested in the DNA testing that had been done in the case. Williams, the man claimed, said he had spent Yarborough's last night with him. The two argued, the cellmate said, and when Williams woke up in the morning, Yarborough was dead. Prosecutors did not respond to the letter, so the man contacted the defense attorney. The judge did not allow the cellmate to testify at Thorpe's trial. Daye did testify. On the stand and during his interview with USA TODAY, the detective said he believed the murder was committed by a third suspect. Jerome Lamberth had previously lived with Yarborough, but left town shortly after the homicide. At least six different people provided police with information tying Lamberth to the crime, Daye said, and clothing found in Yarborough's home was the perfect fit for Lamberth. 'We were comfortable that this guy did it, and we wanted to find him,' Daye told a reporter. But they couldn't. They tracked Lamberth to an address in Virginia, but he wasn't there. They put out an alert, but it turned up no sign of him based on his name, social security number or birth date, leading them to believe he had gone into hiding and perhaps changed his name. His car was found in a Roxboro scrapyard. Lamberth was never charged. The man in prison was previously cleared Daye and Stevens worked the case for about five years. Early in the investigation, they questioned Thorpe and the two other men later charged in the case, Quentin Royster and Kenneth Snead. The detectives cleared all three. 'There was no physical evidence that linked them to the murder,' Daye said. 'It just wasn't there.' What's more, the number of stab wounds indicated a crime of passion, the investigators believed, but Thorpe, Royster and Snead barely knew Yarborough. At the time, all three men were addicted to crack. Thorpe and Royster hustled for a local dealer, Kimwon Street, serving as middlemen between him and his customers. They were paid in drugs, Street testified at Thorpe's trial. Snead was never even a suspect, Daye told USA TODAY. Royster had a credible alibi. Daye testified at a post-conviction hearing that he became even more convinced of Royster's innocence after arresting him for a different crime months after Yarborough was killed. 'I started reading his arrest warrant. He thought it was the murder warrant,' Daye recalled from the stand. 'And I couldn't even read it because he stood up and kept yelling, 'I'm not a killer, Keith Daye, I'm not a killer!' So that was kind of convincing to me.' As for Thorpe, Daye called him 'a menace' to the community. 'During the investigation, there was circumstantial evidence that put Dominaque in the area during the time of the murder,' Daye told USA TODAY. 'As a matter of fact, Dominaque stayed in the area while we were processing the crime scene, riding his (moped) around in circles 50 yards from the crime scene.' Thorpe was questioned several times, Daye said, but never wavered in his insistence that he had not gone into Yarborough's house the night of the murder. 'I knew Domonaque very well. I had arrested him on several things,' Daye said. 'He would rob people, and beat up people, but I didn't think he had the instinct of a killer.' The case went cold. Informant's tip reopens the case In 2012, five years after Yarborough's murder, Daye resigned from the Roxboro Police Department, and Detective Ricky Hughes took over the case. Less than a year later, Hughes got a call from the jail, records show. A woman named Blanche Smith, who had been arrested on a drug charge, wanted to give him information on drug dealers in hopes of getting a break in her own case. The detective asked if she knew anything about Yarborough's murder. 'When I took the case over, I lived it. I ate it. I slept it,' Hughes testified at Thorpe's trial. 'So everything that I did had something to do with this murder. So anybody that I would talk to, I'm going to ask them about Steve Yarborough's murder.' Smith told Hughes she had seen Thorpe holding a bloody shirt the day after the murder. She said she ran into him in New York a couple of months later and asked about it. Thorpe told her he was there when Royster 'messed up' Yarborough with an ice pick, she said. Even though the medical examiner determined that the wounds had been made with a 'sharp cutting instrument,' – more consistent with a knife than an ice pick – the investigation was reopened. The theory prosecutors later presented to jurors was that Thorpe and Royster needed money for crack, and Yarborough agreed to pay them for sex. The two repeatedly went back and forth from a cookout at Street's house to Yarborough's house for more cash. When he stopped paying, they forced him to perform oral sex, raped him and killed him, prosecutors alleged. Snead, prosecutors alleged, attempted to cover up for the other two. All three men pleaded not guilty. At Thorpe's trial, Smith acknowledged that she had received more than $1,000 from the Roxboro Police, which she used for expenses such as the phone bill, the electric bill and a new bed. Hughes testified that the money came from a fund "for paying confidential and reliable informants." Some of it paid for Smith to travel back to Roxboro from Maryland, where she had moved temporarily, Hughes testified. He said he could't remember why she received the rest. In addition to Smith, key witnesses for the prosecution included two men who had been jailed with Thorpe at different times. One claimed Thorpe confessed to killing Yarborough over 'drugs and money and things of that nature,' and that the murder included 'some type of sexual situation.' The other said he overheard Thorpe bragging that he had violently sexually assaulted Yarborough. The man also claimed he heard Thorpe say, 'I had to kill him. Couldn't leave no witness behind.' Under questioning by the prosecutor, the informant said he had not received anything in exchange for his testimony. But under cross-examination by the defense, the man acknowledged he was released from jail 44 minutes after he implicated Thorpe even though he had nine days left on his sentence. Street, the drug dealer, also testified against Thorpe. Street said he heard Thorpe and Royster discussing going to Yarborough's house for money. Street also testified that he had seen the two men sitting on Yarborough's porch drinking beer during the late night or early morning hours before the body was found. Street has since recanted. The medical examiner testified that there were no injuries to Yarborough's penis or anus. She did note 'shallow, tearing lesions' in the corners of his mouth. Time of death questioned after guilty verdict After the jury found Thorpe guilty, his co-defendants were allowed to enter Alford pleas to lesser charges, meaning they maintained their innocence but conceded prosecutors likely had enough evidence to convict them. Royster served four years in prison and was released; Snead was locked up for 31 months. He later died by suicide. Mumma, executive director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, signed up to represent both Thorpe and Royster after receiving a letter from Royster in 2018. She hired an expert who said Yarborough's death occurred at least 24 to 48 hours before his body was found – not 17 hours, as the prosecution claimed. If the expert's timeframe is correct, that means Yarborough would have been dead long before the cookout began. 'In my opinion, it's not possible to get that level of decomposition that we saw at the crime scene in so short of time without accelerating factors, and those factors were not present,' the expert, Dr. Christena Roberts, testified at a post-conviction hearing. 'Certainly, I wouldn't expect this level of decomposition in just 17 hours.' During the same hearing, Thorpe's trial attorney testified that she didn't ask for any additional testing of the rape kit evidence collected from Yarborough's body prior to trial. She also didn't present the results of the DNA testing that was done on the underwear or the cigarette butts, which excluded Thorpe. New DNA testing Even though the rape kit had been only partially tested at the time of the crime, Thorpe's criminal conviction meant he wasn't automatically entitled to additional testing once the technology had advanced. In North Carolina, in cases such as his, the defendant must prove new rape kit evidence would be material to the case before a judge will order testing. In Thorpe's case, the prosecution agreed to the testing without conceding that point. The judge signed off on the deal, paving the way for the updated DNA analysis. The answers about the favorability of evidence aren't always obvious. Someone else's DNA in a rape kit would seem favorable on its face, but prosecutors could argue it came from a consensual partner — or even a second rapist. What's more, it's possible for a rape to occur without DNA being found in the rape kit. Therefore, the absence of the defendant's genetic material doesn't automatically mean he didn't commit the crime. That's what the prosecution argued in Thorpe's case. 'These results ... provide nothing new and they take away nothing from what existed at the time of the defendant's trial,' Assistant District Attorney Hollie McAdams said at a 2023 post-conviction hearing. 'The defendant was tried and convicted of the offense of murder, not the offense of rape. This set of results does not change anything.' McAdams did not return a reporter's telephone calls. Mumma argued that if the jury had known Thorpe's DNA was absent but two other suspects' genetic profiles were found on evidence inside Yarborough's house, they likely would have ruled differently. The judge disagreed, and the state Court of Appeals declined to take up the case. If the state Supreme Court rules against Thorpe, his next step would be filing a motion in federal court. If the Supreme Court rules in his favor, its decision could prompt changes the state's post-conviction DNA law, which was originally passed in 2001. Mumma says the advances in science demand it. 'The DNA testing statutes have not kept up with the times,' she said. 'DNA testing can now be conducted when limited skin cells are present. And, in some cases, the old saying 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' is simply not true.' Gina Barton is an investigative reporter at USA TODAY. She can be reached at (262) 757-8640 or gbarton@ Follow her on X @writerbarton or on Bluesky @
Miami Herald
18-04-2025
- Miami Herald
Kids stumbled on dead 18-year-old on walk in 1989, MO cops say. Man now charged
An 18-year-old woman told her friend she was going to walk to her husband's business in 1989, then vanished, Missouri police said. Jennifer Williams was found dead 12 days later by a group of kids or teens on a walk, according to Springfield police. The case went cold for decades — until now. New advancements in DNA technology allowed the woman's sexual assault kit to be tested twice in 2019 and 2024, police said in an April 17 news release. On Sept. 8, Williams was dropped off at her home, police said. Then, she told a friend she was going to visit her husband's business. When her body was found, officials determined she had been sexually assaulted and killed, police said. She was reported missing three days later, authorities said, then her body was found. In 2019, the evidence in Williams' cold case was tested as part of the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, but the test was inconclusive, police said. Further technology developments for the 2024 test identified 62-year-old Paul Bowles, of Fulton, as a suspect in her death, according to officials. Bowles was held in Fulton State Hospital on unrelated charges, police said. He is held in Calloway County Jail on charges of second-degree murder, forcible rape and forcible sodomy, police said. Fulton is about a 160-mile drive northeast from Springfield.
