Preliminary DNA match links July 4 kidnapping suspect to 2012 case in Calhoun County
Calhoun County Sheriff Matthew Wade said investigators hadn't exactly been haunted by a 2012 rape case after a woman was attacked and kidnapped earlier this month by a man who apparently followed her home from shopping.
But that cold case from 10 years ago is one they wanted to solve, and in the preliminary stages of the response to the July 4 kidnapping, Wade and Capt. Joey Stone saw similarities to that earlier attack and to one Talladega investigators investigated in July 2013.
"We had no leads," Wade said Friday. "For nine years, we had nothing."
The victim in the 2012 case is now gone; she died in 2017. But DNA evidence remained from her attack and another in the neighboring county — and it told investigators the same person attacked both women in Calhoun County.
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Wade said there had been no hits from CODIS — a DNA database of samples from those arrested for violent crimes or felonies — after evidence from the previous cases was submitted.
That changed when a DNA sample from Tony Lamar White, 47, of Anniston, the suspect in the July 4 kidnapping, was uploaded to the system.
"We got a hit linking his DNA to ... the 2012 case we had," Stone said. The evidence from the Talladega case is still being analyzed.
Wade said these results are preliminary and there is much investigative work to be done.
Still, he said, he's relieved that the suspect now linked to another attack is behind bars.
Assistant District Attorney Eric Snyder said White is charged with first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, first-degree burglary and kidnapping in the July 4 incident, and is being held on a $4 million bond.
He said White will be in court Monday afternoon for a preliminary hearing, and prosecutors plan to ask that he be held without bond under the conditions of "Aniah's law."
That law is named for a college student Aniah Blanchard, who was murdered in October 2019. The man charged in her death was free on bond on charges of kidnapping and attempted murder.
The law allows prosecutors to ask that suspects charged with serious crimes such as rape, kidnapping or murder be held without bond. Snyder said it would allow a judge to keep suspected predators off the streets while awaiting trial.
White has not yet been charged in connection with the 2012 case.
The crime he is charged with — the broad daylight kidnapping on July 4 — was a shocker.
Wade said the 75-year-old woman's family reported her missing after finding groceries and some of her belongings at her home after she'd gone shopping — but no sign of the woman in or around her home.
Looking at security camera footage, investigators were able to track her movements — and those of a vehicle that seemed to be following her from store to store.
Tracing the vehicle gave them a suspect's name; looking for that suspect they found the victim, bound and hidden in a closet at the suspect's Wilmer Avenue home. She had suffered lacerations and was hospitalized; Wade said it was a "miracle" to find her alive and to find her within about six hours of the abduction.
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White was not found at the scene; he was arrested on the evening of July 5 in Richmond, Kentucky, by state troopers who saw the BOLO for the vehicle. He was returned to Alabama and remains in the Calhoun County Jail.
Wade had expressed concern about other possible victims when investigators announced the search for White. He noted that White had worked as a certified nursing assistant, sitting with patients, often elderly ones. He said Friday no other victims have been identified or come forward with allegations.
Wade said the family of the 2012 victim had been contacted before information about the DNA link was made public. He noted that Stone had been the investigator in that case, and had kept in contact with the victim until her death.
Contact Gadsden Times reporter Donna Thornton at 256-393-3284 or donna.thornton@gadsdentimes.com.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Calhoun County sheriff: DNA link between July 2012, July 2022 attacks
