DNA lands rapist in prison

CLANTON -- A brutal rape case that had gone cold for more than five years has been resolved using the latest technology to match prints and DNA.

A cold case unit formed in 2005 within the Alabama Bureau of Investigation is credited with bringing 29-year-old Redius Worthy to justice, said District Attorney Randall Houston.

Worthy, who admitted to the crime in court Thursday, was sentenced to 40 years in prison by Circuit Judge John Bush.

The night of June 10, 2000, a 26-year-old Chilton County woman was attacked in her home. She was raped repeatedly, sodomized and severely beaten, said Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Jordan.

"It was every woman's nightmare," she said. "A masked man cut her phone lines, entered her darkened bedroom, raped her, beat her and left her for dead."

The cold case unit works cases that can be solved by matching DNA, said ABI Cpl. Lynn Sutton, who chose the rape case as the first one the unit looked into.

"I never worked the case when it first happened," Sutton said. "Her evidence was in our locker, and I saw it every time I went in there. I felt like I knew her. One of the happiest days of my life was when I told her we had a name to tie to the evidence."

During the attack, the rapist left a print of his palm, soaked in the victim's blood, on a wall. State investigators used updated fingerprint systems to get a partial match to Worthy, who was serving a sentence for robbery out of Bibb County at Easterling Correctional Facility, court records state.

Palm prints usually aren't taken as part of the records in criminal investigations. Investigators had cut out the section of drywall at the victim's home that had Worthy's prints. ABI investigators got a court order to get a set of Worthy's palm prints and a sample of his DNA.

It was a perfect match, Jordan said.

On Thursday, the victim made an emotional plea to Bush for a long prison sentence.

"Mr. Worthy is a predator, and he will do this again to another innocent soul if given the opportunity," she said. "I strongly believe that he cannot be rehabilitated. He is a sick, evil and violent individual. My life will never be the same because of him."

Prints and DNA evidence were recovered at the house, but during the early phases of the investigation a search of databases brought back no hits, Houston said.

"Imagine how she felt, not knowing who did this to her," Houston said. "She was constantly in fear that he would come back and do it again or kill her. She didn't know if the man she saw on the street or at the grocery store was her attacker."

The victim is pleased with the sentence, he said.

"Today she is happy to know that he will spend the next years of his life in prison ... away from her," Houston said. "These are the days that make it all worth it for us as prosecutors and investigators. A lot of people put a lot of effort in this case so that today we have a very, very bad person in jail and hopefully have a victim that will no longer be a victim."