Advancements in DNA tech lead to arrest in 30-year-old double murder

June 26 (UPI) -- New advancements in DNA technology are being credited for the arrest and indictment of a Georgia man on charges of double murder and rape committed more than 30 years ago.

District Attorney Sherry Boston for DeKalb County, which includes part of Atlanta, announced the development in the cold case during a press conference Wednesday, saying Kenneth Perry, 55, of Loganville has been apprehended and charged in connection to the stabbing deaths of siblings Pamela Sumpter, 43, and John Sumpter, 46, in 1990.

"More than 30 years after the alleged crime, Mr. Perry is now awaiting his day in court," she said.

Pamela and John were attacked July 15, 1990, at a residence they shared in an apartment complex in Stone Mountain. Police arrived at the scene to find John dead and Pamela suffering from stab wounds and injuries from being raped.

At the hospital, a rape kit was produced and Pamela told officers that the assailant was a man her brother had brought to the apartment whom she didn't know but who had said he was from Detroit.

Two weeks later, Pamela died from her injuries and the case went cold, and it stayed that way for years -- that is until October 2023 when the DeKalb County District Attorney's Office was awarded a grant from the Justice Department to prosecute cold cases using DNA.

The grant, she said, went to using Forensic Genetic Genealogy, which takes a DNA profile from a case and runs it through law enforcement-accessible family tree databases to search for relatives in order to identify who the DNA belongs to and whether they are an unidentified victim or perpetrator.

The FGG determined genealogical matches to Pamela's rape kit and formed a family network that could include Perry, the attorney's office said in a statement .

Meanwhile, Boston's office with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had uploaded a previously produced DNA profile made with a sample from Pamela's rape kit to a national database and received a match to an unprosecuted sexual assault case in Detroit in 1992. The victim in that case had identified the suspect as her ex-boyfriend named Kenneth Perry.

Using that information, investigators located Perry and arrested him June 6 without incident in Gwinnett County, Boston said, adding that the suspect is being held at the DeKalb County Jail without bond.

"We are here today because of incredible advancements in science and in investigative technology that have made what once seemed an unsolvable case a solid case," she said.

James Sumpter, the brother of Pamela and John, thanked those during the press conference for helping to bring the case to a close.

"It's been over 30 years since this terrible, evil tragedy happened to my brother and sister," he said.

"We now have closure."