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https://s.hdnux.com/photos/27/32/22/6136994/9/960x0.webp
Herman Ray Whitfield Jr. in 2009. Photo: Houston Police Department

Houston police on Tuesday for the first time identified a criminal suspect - a possible serial rapist - from testing of sexual assault kits that once gathered dust in the police property room.

HPD sex crime investigators said Herman Ray Whitfield Jr., 43, has been charged with four counts of aggravated sexual assault going back to 1992, and said he may have had more victims.One of his victims, police said, was a 12-year-old.

The identity comes one year after two independent labs began processing about 10,000 cases, including 6,600 untested sexual assault kits, that were stored in the HPD property room. The city turned to an outside lab after DNA testing at HPD's crime lab
was suspended when an independent audit revealed shoddy forensic work.

In February, Houston Police Department brass said partial results of a DNA testing had not resulted in any false arrests. And while HPD confirmed the testing had led to a number of arrests, they would not reveal the exact number or identify any suspects.

"I don't think it's surprising. You have thousands of untested rape kits, and when you start testing them you're going to start making connections," said Mark Bennett, a veteran Houston criminal defense attorney.

"If there are rape victims who wouldn't have been raped if the authorities had done their jobs properly, we should all be outraged by that."

Whitfield lived in the Sunnyside neighborhood of southeast Houston and is now imprisoned in the Byrd Unit in Huntsville. He has been linked by DNA to four rapes between 1992 and 1994 and between 2006 and 2009, police said Tuesday.

"He was very violent in his assaults," Sgt. John Colburn said. "He choked his victims and would display a weapon or let them know he had one."

Women who saw photos of the 6-foot-3 Whitfield and identified him as their attacker told police they didn't know him.

Whitfield was sentenced in 1994 to 30 years in prison for kidnapping and served 12 years before being paroled in 2006, Colburn said.

He confirmed the evidence in the sexual assault cases was developed by DNA testing by the independent labs.

From 2006 to 2009, Whitfield was living near Airport Boulevard and Texas 288 in the Sunnyside area but had several different addresses before being sent back to prison in 2009 on a parole violation, according to officer Holly Whillock.

At some point during his parole, Whitfield's DNA was entered into a national database, allowing police to later link him to the four local cases, Colburn said.

His victims ranged from 12 to 30.

Three of the assaults occurred before he went to prison: Dec. 15, 1992, 4300 block of Alvin; Feb. 16, 1993, 4300 block of Alvin; and Aug. 30, 1993, 4400 block of Wilmington.

The other charge stems from an attack on June 11, 2008, in the 4300 block of Wilmington. In that case, police released a composite sketch of the attacker, based upon the victim's description.

All the attacks occurred on trails, in bushes, in vacant lots or in vacant houses. Whillock said the area was much less developed in the 1990s than it is now.

Investigators said they believe others were attacked.

Last year, Mayor Annise Parker and the City Council agreed to spend $4.4 million in city funds and federal grants to send evidence for testing to two nationally known independent labs.

Included were 6,600 kits of evidence taken from sexual assault victims that were never tested, the oldest going back to 1987.

The testing was necessary not only to eliminate the backlog of older rape kits, but also to keep up with a growing number of various categories of newer cases developed by HPD investigators that required DNA testing.

Houston police closed their crime lab in 2002. An independent audit criticized the lab, citing unqualified personnel, lax protocols and inadequate facilities that included a roof that leaked rainwater onto evidence.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/hpd-looking-for-more-victims-of-possible-serial-5386439.php

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