DNA match heats up rape case from 2002

A Greenville man is in jail after police got a new lead in a rape case that happened four years ago.

Police arrested 46-year-old Charles Eugene Gardner on Wednesday.

He's charged with attempted robbery and first-degree rape in an attack that happened in May of 2002.

Back then, a 31-year-old woman reported that she was raped near the railroad tracks behind JH Rose High School off Arlington Boulevard.

Gardner is now in the Pitt County Detention Center under $500,000 bond.

Police say this was a cold case and there were no real suspects.

But a DNA sample finally gave them the break they were looking for.

"This definitely resembles what I saw four years ago; it's not changed that much at all."

Sgt. Richard Allsbrook remembers that night in May of 2002 when a rape happened near these railroad tracks in Greenville.

"She had some sense of I think I might be being followed but clearly she was caught off guard," Allsbrook said.

The victim told police she was taking a shortcut across these train tracks when a man with a knife grabbed her. He tried to rob her and then forced her to the side of the tracks and raped her.

"We're accustomed to most of our cases where the victim knows the offender and this was a case where the victim did not," Allsbrook said.

Allsbrook says they had very little evidence to go on, a suspect description from the victim and the attacker's DNA from a rape kit.

They submitted their evidence to the State Bureau of Investigations crime lab but with no new leads or information, the case went cold.

But the SBI recently got a match while doing a routine check, pairing DNA from a national database of convicted criminals to the DNA of unsolved rape cases.

"It was good news to hear," Allsbrook said.

Allsbrook says the DNA matched that of 46-year-old Charles Eugene Gardner.

According to the State Department of Corrections, Gardner has been to prison before for robbery and second-degree rape.

"Thanks to the DNA of the SBI’s findings, this helped solve this case," Allsbrook said.

And because rape is a felony, Allsbrook says the attacker can still be convicted no matter how many years have passed.

"This is a prime example here of how something in terms of the criminal behaviors definitely the past came back to catch him."

He says it's brought some closure not only to the case, but to the victim.

Allsbrook says the SBI has increased staffing and resources in its crime unit to help law enforcement solve cold cases.