Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit links DNA of traveling music teacher to rapes

Elliot L. Higgins, a man of music and culture, traveled to Tuscaloosa two times to participate in music competitions held at the University of Alabama. According to Capt. Jack Kennedy, commander of the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit, Higgins, who is now deceased, is suspected of committing violent rapes during both trips.

Higgins' first trip to Tuscaloosa was in 1991. Kennedy said Higgins raped a University of Alabama student on that trip at an off-campus housing area. On his second trip in 2001, Kennedy said Higgins posed as a potential home buyer and raped a real estate agent. Higgins was never caught.

"In 1991, a young woman was violently sexually assaulted in the month of August. She was a university student at the time. The investigation at that time was done very well and very thorough, but no suspects were ever developed," Kennedy said at a Thursday news conference announcing that they consider the Tuscaloosa cases solved thanks to DNA analysis.

"In 2001, another woman was violently sexually assaulted within Tuscaloosa County. This occurred at a home. The victim was a Realtor who had met to show a home to a subject who assaulted her."

Kennedy said the two Tuscaloosa cases did not have many similarities. In the 1991 case, the rapist approached the victim at night, pressed a knife to her neck and forced her into a vehicle. He forced her to drive them to another location where he sexually assaulted her for an extended period of time. In the 2001 case, the rapist used an entirely different modus operandi.

"The physical descriptions in those cases were not very similar," Kennedy said. VCU investigators wouldn't understand the change in the perpetrator's modus operandi until much later.

In 2004, due to advances in DNA analysis, investigators sent the sexual assault evidence kit from the 2001 case back to the Department of Forensic Sciences for testing. The analysis revealed that DNA from a sexual assault case that had occurred in 2004 in El Paso County, Colorado matched the DNA obtained in the 2001 case in Tuscaloosa. The physical description from the Colorado victim and the subject's MO were very similar to the 2001 case in Tuscaloosa.

"In that case, (Colorado) she fought back. Good for her. She bloodied his nose, and the DNA came back from his blood. He was not able to complete his crime there," Kennedy said.

Investigators in Tuscaloosa started to recognized the similarities in all three crimes since they had not stopped working the cases. They did not have DNA linking the 1991 and the 2001 cases, but they had the definite link between the 2001 case in Tuscaloosa and the 2004 case in Colorado.

"As you can imagine, it was extremely frustrating at the time, because no suspect was developed," Kennedy said.

He said that the investigators in Tuscaloosa, including Capt. Kip Hart, a former Violent Crimes Unit commander, did extensive work on the cases, collaborating with the police in Colorado and various task forces investigating violent rape cases around the country.

"The amount of effort and work by investigators in the violent crimes unit over the last 30 years is incredible," Kennedy said.

He said that when he took over the task force, he began looking into the rape cold cases. Funding was developed for further DNA testing on the 1991 rape case, and the evidence was sent to Parabon Labs. They were able to provide a suspect and the link to the other crimes.

"Pursuant to that investigation, and later, we were able to get DNA from his biological relatives and send that to forensic sciences, and they were able to confirm through DNA that he was the suspect and the perpetrator in that," Kennedy said. The confirmation was beyond 99.999% certain, according to the records provided.

Elliot L. Higgins was born March 13, 1941, and most recently lived in the tiny village of Jemez Springs, New Mexico, north of Albuquerque. He was a renowned teacher of music, a specialist in the French horn. He was a founder and participant in collegiate level music workshops and competitions, though he was never employed by a university. At various times in his life, he conducted the Albuquerque Philharmonic Orchestra, and managed the Santa Barbara Symphony in California and the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra in Indiana. He was active in both playing and teaching music and in judging music competitions all over the country.

More:Obituary for Elliot L. Higgins

In 1976, Higgins helped found, and was a frequent judge in, the International Horn Competition, an annual collegiate music competition that is still held at colleges around the country though it has been held under other names. The Higgins family operates a music camp in Jemez Springs. Higgins founded the Hummingbird Music Festival that draws music students from around the country. Law enforcement authorities say both rapes in Tuscaloosa occurred during times when Higgins was in town to participate in the competition.

According to police records, the cultured music teacher had a much darker side. In his younger years, he was arrested multiple times for various sex-related crimes committed the area of Cleveland, Ohio, where he lived at that time. As an adult, police believe he committed the two violent rapes in the Tuscaloosa area and the attempted rape in Colorado.

"Earlier in his life he was from Ohio, in the Cleveland area, and he has a criminal record from those times of sexual assaults on minors," Kennedy said. Many of the charges stemmed from incidents in the early 1970s. "I don't know what happened between those years. I just know that he was offending as a 20-year-old and he was offending as a 60-year-old. I know from our training and research that the recidivism rate with these type offenders is very high. He was trying to assault women even when he was physically handicapped by medical problems as an old man."

Kennedy believes there will be more sexual crimes tied to Higgins as time goes by, and the VCU has shared their work with other departments around the country where there are unsolved sex crimes.

"Sine we determined all this information, for the last several months, we have contacted every police department and jurisdiction that we knew where he worked or where this competition was held. The entire case file has been shared with them so they can look for unsolved sexual assaults in their areas," Kennedy said.

"I would believe it is extremely likely there will be more victims," Kennedy said. "These type of people are compelled to assault, compelled to re-offend. The fact that he did them both times he came to Tuscaloosa, he didn't miss. One of the reasons he got away for so long with this is because he had been caught extensively as a young man and did some jail time. I believe he learned his lesson and didn't want to repeat that."

Kennedy said the musical competitions and workshops gave him the ability to travel to various locations around the country without arousing suspicion.

Higgins died at age 73, on Sept. 23, 2014 in Jemez Springs, New Mexico. Kennedy said that, though the suspect is dead and can't face charges, they are releasing the information to hopefully give closure to the victims and to help any other victims who are out there who have not come forward. Kennedy said that anyone who feels they may have been a victim can contact their local police agency.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: DNA of traveling music teacher linked to Tuscaloosa rapes, police say