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Student's rape went unsolved for 14 years. Police say suspect gave his DNA to a genealogy database.
Morning Mix
A student’s rape went unsolved for 14 years. Police say the suspect gave his DNA to a genealogy database.
By Katie Shepherd
June 29, 2021 at 5:07 a.m. EDT
Fourteen years ago, a University of Tampa student was walking home after drinking at the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival, a parade celebrating the fictional pirate José Gaspar, when a stranger offered to walk her back to the dorms.
When they arrived at her dorm room, the man raped her, police say. Then, he disappeared.
Police leads went cold almost immediately. DNA evidence collected at the time did not match any known offenders, and the woman did not know the attacker.
“We ran into a few dead ends in the case back in 2007,” Assistant Tampa Police Chief Ruben Delgado said at a news conference last week.
The case might have remained a mystery if Jared T. Vaughn had not voluntarily provided a sample of his DNA to a public genealogy database, according to police.
{snip}
By Katie Shepherd
Katie Shepherd is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. Before joining The Post, she was a staff writer at Willamette Week in Portland, Ore. Twitter https://twitter.com/katemshepherd
A student’s rape went unsolved for 14 years. Police say the suspect gave his DNA to a genealogy database.
By Katie Shepherd
June 29, 2021 at 5:07 a.m. EDT
Fourteen years ago, a University of Tampa student was walking home after drinking at the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival, a parade celebrating the fictional pirate José Gaspar, when a stranger offered to walk her back to the dorms.
When they arrived at her dorm room, the man raped her, police say. Then, he disappeared.
Police leads went cold almost immediately. DNA evidence collected at the time did not match any known offenders, and the woman did not know the attacker.
“We ran into a few dead ends in the case back in 2007,” Assistant Tampa Police Chief Ruben Delgado said at a news conference last week.
The case might have remained a mystery if Jared T. Vaughn had not voluntarily provided a sample of his DNA to a public genealogy database, according to police.
{snip}
By Katie Shepherd
Katie Shepherd is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. Before joining The Post, she was a staff writer at Willamette Week in Portland, Ore. Twitter https://twitter.com/katemshepherd