DNA analysis helps lead to an arrest in a 1991 Durham rape case
A Durham man is accused of breaking into a woman’s home and raping her 32 years ago.
Kenneth Lunsford, 60, was arrested by the Durham Police Department’s Cold Case Unit on Aug. 17 through the state’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI), which matched his DNA to evidence collected from a sexual assault kit.
Lunsford is charged with first-degree burglary, first-degree rape and attempted first-degree sexual offense. He is currently being held in Durham County jail under a $1.5 million secured bond, police said in a Tuesday news release.
On July 27, 1991, a female victim reported that an unknown man broke into her home and assaulted her near Clarendon and Green streets north of Duke University’s East Campus.
In 2018, the North Carolina Department of Justice was awarded a $2-million SAKI grant to complete the state’s sexual assault kit inventory, go through untested kits and make arrests in sexual assault cold cases.
On March 17, Raleigh Police also arrested a man in a 32-year-old rape and burglary case using DNA analysis through SAKI. The victim was a 73-year-old woman who died in 1992.
Durham police made an arrest last December for two sexual assaults that occurred in 1993 also through SAKI.
On Tuesday, District Attorney Satana Deberry announced that her office convicted Jorge Martinez Flores, 43, last week of two felony counts of attempted statutory rape.
Flores was previously arrested on drug charges in Durham. He was charged in 2004 with statutory rape but fled the county’s jurisdiction.
This led the District Attorney to prosecute him for that case, which caused a second victim to report her 2004 assault by Flores for the first time in June.
Anyone with information on Lunford’s case is asked to call Investigator H. Brown at (919) 560-4440, ext. 29461 or CrimeStoppers at (919) 683-1200. CrimeStoppers pays cash rewards of up to $2,000 for information leading to arrest in felony cases and callers never have to identify themselves.
