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DNA pins 1994 rape on convicted sex offender

DECATUR, AL (WAFF) - DNA analysis collected in the 1994 rape of a Decatur teen has resulted in more charges against a man incarcerated for three other sexual assaults.

According to Decatur police officials, a 16-year-old girl was asleep in her bedroom in the former Stonegate Village Apartments complex on June 7th, 1994 when she was awakened by a man who climbed into her window about 4 a.m.

The victim told investigators that the assailant held the girl down and raped her. He then fled back out of the bedroom window.

The victim was taken to Decatur General Hospital, where a sexual assault examination was conducted and forensic evidence was recovered. At the time, the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences was unable to test DNA evidence and DNA databases were not available, so the case remained unsolved.

Police officials said that in the fall of 2008, detectives of the Violent Crimes Unit at the Decatur Police Department reviewed numerous unsolved sexual assault cases, including the 1994 rape. The victim, now 31 years old, supported the continued investigation and was described as eager to find closure with the investigation.

The sexual assault kit was sent back to the Department of Forensics by investigators in December of 2008 for DNA analysis. A DNA profile was identified and entered into an index system of DNA profiles, many of which are obtained from convicted persons. There are currently about 170,000 profiles in Alabama.

One DNA profile in the Alabama database was found to be consistent with the unknown DNA profile. The man who provided the matching DNA, Kenneth Jackson, was found to be incarcerated at the Alabama Department of Corrections, where he is currently serving a life sentence for three rape convictions in the early 1990's - one in Tennessee, another in Huntsville, and a third in Birmingham.

After an investigation where Jackson was interviewed in the St. Clair Correctional Facility, the case was presented to the Morgan County Grand Jury in October of 2009. That grand jury subsequently indicted Jackson for first-degree rape in the previously unsolved 1994 assault in Decatur.

Investigators said Jackson was a drifter who briefly lived in Decatur and north Alabama in the early 1990's. They said Jackson has cooperated fully in the investigation and there aren't believed to be further assaults for which he could face more charges.

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