DNA from 1990 rape kit links suspect to double murder in Georgia and leads to arrest decades later

DNA from a decades-old rape kit links a Georgia man to the fatal stabbing attacks on a woman and her brother in their suburban Atlanta apartment in 1990, officials said Wednesday.

Kenneth Perry, 55, has been charged in connection with the deaths of 43-year-old Pamela Sumpter and 46-year-old John Sumpter, the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office said.

Perry is also charged with the rape of Pamela Sumpter, prosecutors said.

Perry was arrested this month and arraigned on Tuesday, court records show.

He is accused of attacking the siblings on July 15, 1990, in their home in Stone Mountain, about 17 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta, after John Sumpter brought the man into their apartment, the press release said.

Pamela Sumpter survived the attack and was hospitalized, prosecutors said in a news release. In an interview with authorities, she provided a detailed description of Perry, describing him as an acquaintance of her brother who she knew little about, the news release said.

While she was hospitalized, medical staff collected a rape kit containing the attacker’s DNA, prosecutors said. Pamela Sumpter died of her injuries on August 5, 1990, and the case was closed.

Earlier this year, a sample from the test kit was uploaded to a national database that matched DNA from an unprosecuted 1992 Michigan sexual assault case, prosecutors said. The victim in that case identified the suspect as Perry, her ex-boyfriend.

It is unclear why the case was not prosecuted. A spokesman for the district attorney referred NBC News to the district attorney’s office in Wayne County, Michigan, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

After a genetic genealogy company linked DNA from Pamela Sumpter’s rape kit to a “family network that may include” Perry, authorities arrested him and conducted a direct comparison between his DNA and material collected from the kit, prosecutors said.

On June 20, authorities determined that the samples matched, the press release said.

According to jail records, Perry is being held without bail in the DeKalb County Jail.

In a motion filed Monday seeking appropriate bail for possible pretrial release, a lawyer for Perry said he posed no significant threat and no risk of obstruction of justice.

The lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.