More rape allegations leveled against Fayetteville man charged in cold cases
A man arrested last November in two 2007 rapes in Fayetteville has since been linked to three more unsolved rapes in the city in 2010, 2012 and 2015, court records show.
Most recently, the Fayetteville Police Department announced, Christopher James McMillan, 39, was additionally charged Nov. 30 with the abduction and rape of a woman in December 2015. His occupation and address were listed as a maintenance worker at a Bragg Boulevard motel.
Court records show that in February, rape charges from 2010 and 2012 were added to his list of cases.
Among the evidence against him, according to the records, is that the assailant's DNA from the cold-case assaults was connected to a relative of his.
"Detectives recently received notification from the North Carolina State Crime Lab that McMillan’s DNA was forensically linked to the suspect DNA profile from the incident in 2015, as well as the other sexual assault cases from 2007, 2010 and 2012," a Dec. 1 news release from the Fayetteville Police Department said.
In 2015, the victim had accepted a ride to the hospital
On Dec. 15, 2015, a woman was outside the Cumberland Food Mart on Cumberland Street asking a friend for a ride to the hospital when a man overheard and offered to take her. She told police that once inside the vehicle, the driver pulled out a gun and locked the doors.
According to the warrant, with the driver holding a gun against her head, the woman was sexually assaulted at a cemetery on Brinkley Street. Afterward, she was told to face the woods, and the assailant left, the record said.
McMillan is charged with two counts of first-degree rape and one count each of first-degree sexual offense and first-degree kidnapping in the 2015 incident, records show.
More: DNA testing leads to arrest of Fayetteville man in 2007 cold case rapes
In 2010, the woman was choked and raped at gunpoint
According to the arrest warrant, McMillan stands accused of a June 10, 2010, assault after a woman walking down an unnamed street accepted an offer of a ride. Not long after getting in the vehicle, the record states, the driver stopped near Greensboro Street and forced the victim to perform a sex act before putting a gun against her head and raping her. The woman also reported she was choked before she was kicked out of the car and got help at a nearby business.
He is charged with first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree sexual offense in the 2010 incident.
In 2012, a ride to the store ended in an assault near a junkyard
On Aug. 11, 2012, a woman told police she was walking on Person Street when she was offered a ride to the store.
"During the transport the suspect passed by several stores, not going into any, instead going onto Pelt Dr.," the warrant states. At the dead-end of Pelt Drive near a junkyard, the driver raped her.
Afteward, the record states, "The suspect placed his hands around her neck and told her to get out of the car." The woman ran to a nearby home for help.
McMillan is charged with second-degree rape and second-degree kidnapping in the 2012 incident.
McMillan, who was in custody since his November 2022 arrest, was served in February with the warrants for the 2010 and 2012 assaults.
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The two cases in 2007 were just days apart off Blanton Road
The circumstances of the new charges mirror those in the original cases that resulted in McMillan's arrest last year.
The first attack he is accused of perpetrating happened Aug. 14, 2007, when a woman who was walking on Bragg Boulevard accepted a ride. Once inside the vehicle, the woman told police, she saw that the driver had a gun in his lap. She was raped in woods near Pamalee Drive and Blanton Road before escaping to a gas station and calling 911.
The vehicle, she told police, was a white Lincoln Towncar that had children's car seats in the back.
Nine days later on Aug. 23, 2007, a search warrant states, a woman told police she had flagged down a man she knew as Jeff as he drove past and asked for a ride to the store.
"Afterwards they started to head back to her house, but she didn't make it there," the warrant said.
Instead, the driver pulled onto a dirt road off Blanton Road and "told her that he was a cop and she was about to get arrested," the report said. When his passenger started screaming, he clamped a hand over her mouth, threatened to shoot her in the head if she didn't shut up and raped her. Then he kicked her out of the vehicle and left.
In those two cases McMillan is charged with three counts of first-degree rape, two counts of first-degree kidnapping and one count each first-degree sexual offense and communicating threats.
He remained in the Cumberland County jail Friday without bail.
Public safety reporter Joseph Pierre can be reached at jpierre@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Christopher McMillan charged in five cold-case rapes in Fayetteville
