By Bill Galluccio
Photo: Tampa Police Department
Authorities in Florida solved a 14-year-old rape case after the suspect provided his DNA to a genealogy database. The rape occurred in 2007 when a young woman was returning to her dorm at the University of Tampa following the Gasparilla Pirate Festival.
The woman told the police she was drunk when a man approached her and offered to help her back to her room. He proceeded to rape her and fled when her roommate returned to the dorm. Investigators collected DNA evidence at the time but could not find a match.
In 2020, officials started comparing DNA evidence from unsolved cases to genealogy databases such as GEDmatch and FamilyTree. They got a match from the 2007 case to a 44-year-old man named