Two siblings were stabbed to death and the sister’s last words were that the killer was a man from Detroit. He was arrested 34 years later.

For 34 years, the brutal murders of a brother and sister in Georgia remained a mystery – until a decades-old rape kit led to an arrest.

Kenneth Perry, 55, was charged this week with the murder of Pamela Sumpter, 43, and John Sumpter, 46. The two were stabbed to death in their suburban Atlanta apartment on July 15, 1990, the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office said.

John Sumpter died at the scene. His sister Pamela, who was raped and also stabbed, was taken to the hospital where a rape kit was collected and male DNA from her attacker was found.

At the hospital, Pamela gave investigators a detailed description of the man who attacked her and murdered her brother. She told them he was a new acquaintance of her brother and was from Detroit, Michigan.

A few days later, on August 5, 1990, Pamela succumbed to her injuries. And the case stalled.

Two decades passed without any useful clues.

In 2022, investigators then sent the rape kit for examination “as part of their ongoing initiative to examine evidence from pre-1999 rape kits,” according to the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office.

By February 2023, a male DNA profile was created and uploaded to Georgia’s statewide DNA database. However, the profile did not match any known offender at the state level.

A few months later, the prosecutor’s office applied for federal grants to prosecute cases involving DNA, and the case was selected as a suitable candidate for the grants.

In February 2024, the DNA was uploaded to a national database and within days a match was found to a 1992 sexual assault case in Detroit, prosecutors said in a recent press release.

According to prosecutors, the victim in the Detroit case identified the suspect as her ex-boyfriend Kenneth Perry and subsequently tracked him down in Loganville, Georgia.

Through a DNA comparison, investigators identified Perry as a likely suspect. The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office Fugitive Unit arrested him at his home in Loganville. Investigators took a DNA sample from Perry and confirmed that he was the perpetrator in the Sumpter siblings’ murders.

Perry has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of murder, rape, four counts of aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated battery, two counts of possession of a knife during the commission of a felony and theft. He is in custody at the DeKalb County Jail, where he is being held without bail.

“We are here today because incredible advances in science and investigative technology have turned a once unsolvable case into a compelling one,” DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said at a news conference Wednesday.

The victim’s brother, James Sumpter, also spoke at the press conference.

“It has been over 30 years since this terrible, evil tragedy happened to my brother and sister,” said James Sumpter.

“We have closure now. I pray that the legal system prevails.”