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 Jared Vaughn, who lived in West Virginia. They traveled to his home and conducted a second test, which confirmed his identity.
Vaughn turned himself in to authorities and is facing charges of sexual battery.
"It has taken 14 years for resolution in this case, but it's something that was important to us and was important to the victim, to get some closure in this case," Tampa Police Department Assistant Chief Ruben Delgado said according to WTVT. "That was the whole idea about this squad, to kind of take these cases that haven't been unsolved, kind of reenergize them, get with FDLE, see what we can do on the technology side, and in this case, it was a positive and the victim can now have some closure."