A suspect has been charged in a 2013 rape on the South Acton Commuter Rail Station, and police say it was a automotive accident and a bottle of Fireball that helped them remedy the crime.
“We know the terrible personal violation and the continuing trauma that is experienced by survivors of sexual assault crimes,” Middlesex DA Marian Ryan mentioned Tuesday. “We do not give up on these cases. We are committed to using every tool available to us — not just advances in technology — but creative diligent investigative work to bring these cases to resolution.”
In the night of June 18, 2013, a 22-year-old girl, alone on the South Acton station, completed a cellphone name “when she noticed a young white man who was not known to her come toward the platform. She was assuming that he was also waiting for the train,” Ryan mentioned.
That man then raped her at knifepoint, pressured the lady to throw away her cellphone after which fled on foot, the DA mentioned. He couldn’t be discovered by the police who arrived on the scene and there have been no cameras within the space.
On Tuesday, Ryan and Acton Police Chief James Cogan say that the rapist is Christopher Aldrich, 28, of Lunenberg. The man was arraigned in Concord District Court on a cost of aggravated rape, the place Judge Joseph Hurley ordered Aldrich be held with out bail and set a subsequent court docket date of March 22.
The 22-year-old girl that night time was rushed to a close-by hospital the place a sexual assault nurse collected forensic proof that was despatched to the State Police Crime Laboratory, the place technicians have been capable of develop a DNA profile of the attacker.
Two years in the past, investigators put that DNA profile by way of a Forensic Genetic Genealogy evaluation, which connects the profile to matching kin to develop a pool of suspects. That’s when the DA mentioned Aldrich was on their radar.
Last fall, investigators acquired their probability to match Aldrich to the pattern once they say he crashed his automotive on Nov. 9, 2022.
Police on the scene of the crash allegedly seized an open bottle of Fireball — a well-liked whiskey flavored like cinnamon — and different gadgets from Aldrich’s Ford Crown Victoria. Investigators swabbed these gadgets and have been capable of make a DNA profile that they are saying matches that of the 2013 rape to a certainty of lower than 1 in 3 sextillion people.
A sextillion is a 1 adopted by 21 zeros, and a quantity almost 126 billion occasions that of the U.S. Census Bureau’s estimated 7.94 billion world inhabitants firstly of this 12 months.
Ryan mentioned that this case “marks an important milestone” for her workplace’s Cold Case Unit, launched in 2019.
“We are changing the narrative of what defines ‘cold case’ and at the same time sending a strong message to victims and perpetrators of sexual violence in this county,” she mentioned. “The mere passage of time does nothing to affect our resolve to pursue justice in these cases.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”