DNA links inmate to slaying of girl, 14

Nearly a decade after the 1997 rape and slaying of a 14-year-old girl, DNA evidence was found to match that of a man in prison on unrelated charges.

Based on that finding and testimony, a judge last week ordered James E. Carrodine, 35, of Eastlake to stand trial on charges of murder, felony murder and first-degree criminal sexual conduct in the case.

Flint District Judge Herman Marable Jr. scheduled a circuit court arraignment for Carrodine. He will face Genesee Circuit Judge Geoffrey L. Neithercut on Aug. 13, Carrodine is charged in the Nov. 11, 1997, rape and murder of Shayla Rose, 14, a Northern High School student found strangled in an abandoned apartment house at 808 Oak St.

The case went unsolved for years, but advances in DNA technology and the dogged pursuit by detectives of the Flint Violent Crimes Task Force, the local cold case unit, brought about an arrest.

The recent court hearings have reopened wounds for the Rose family.

"We've waited 10 years, and now it's like it's all starting over again," said Crystal Fielder, 40, of Flint Township, Shayla's mother. "This has taken a toll on our family. But we hope it's a good case. DNA don't lie."

Fielder said her daughter was headed to a classmate's home and the funeral of another friend.

"She never made it to her friend's house," Fielder said.

Gary Elford, then a Flint police homicide detective who is now retired from the department, said he was called to the Oak Street location and found Rose in an upstairs apartment.

A pathologist ruled strangulation as a cause of death.

State forensic experts saw a yellowed mark on the sock five years later when the case was reopened. It turned out to be a semen stain, and DNA extracted from it last year got a match with a DNA profile of Carrodine in the national Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, officials said.

Carrodine was serving a 20-year sentence in the Oak Correctional Facility for his conviction on charges of assault with intent to murder and weapons charges in a 2004 shooting.