Cobb DA's office IDs, arrests suspect in 30 year cold case

Nov. 19—A Marietta man was arrested Tuesday after analysis of a sexual assault kit identified him as the perpetrator of a crime committed more than 30 years ago, the Cobb District Attorney's Office announced Friday.

Marietta's Christopher Lee Milton, 55, has been charged with kidnapping, rape, aggravated assault and other felonies, according to jail records.

On March 5, 1990, Milton found a woman in the Cumberland area, near the intersection of Windy Hill Road and North Park Place, according to the warrant for his arrest.

Milton dragged the woman into a nearby wooded area, where he told her he had a knife, beat her and proceeded to rape her, according to his warrant.

Milton's identification was made possible by the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, a grant-funded program that "allows the testing of samples from sexual assault kits and property in evidence for DNA and other evidence," according to the district attorney's office.

Lisa Bishop, a Sexual Assault Kit Initiative investigator in the DA's office, re-opened the case and was "integral in the collection of additional information which provided sufficient evidence to secure a warrant for the arrest of Milton," according to the office.

According to Milton's arrest warrant, DNA evidence from the woman's sexual assault kit suggested Milton might be the perpetrator in February of 2020. Last month, the DA's office obtained a warrant for Milton's DNA, and on Tuesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's crime lab matched that DNA to DNA from the sexual assault kit.

"The frequency in which this DNA profile obtained would be expected to occur in a given population is one in three nonillion," the arrest warrant states.

Milton was arrested with help from the Fugitive Division of the Cobb County Sheriff's Office.