TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa police believe they've solved a crime that happened more than two decades ago.
Using genetic genealogy to find leads, the Tampa Police Department says an arrest has been made in a 1998 rape and kidnapping case.
Authorities say 60-year-old James Byrd was arrested Wednesday morning in Marion County and charged with armed kidnapping and sexual battery on a 22-year-old woman.
"As is clear in this case, we have never considered an investigation as a 'cold
case' and we work every case until each one can be successfully solved," Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan wrote in a statement.
Dugan's department was helped by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office, and the United States Marshals Service.
A police spokesperson said the genetic genealogy information that helped crack the case was received as "a direct result" of FDLE's partnership with Parabon NanoLabs, which does testing and often helps with the initial genetic genealogy work during investigations.
The crime in question
Investigators say the young woman was walking on March 8, 1998, in the area of Columbus Drive and I-4 in Hillsborough County. According to an arrest affidavit, Byrd made a U-turn from westbound Columbus Drive, pulled alongside her and offered her a ride.
He drove her to a spot in Tampa, pulled a knife and told her: "Do what I tell you and you won't get hurt," the affidavit said. He then proceeded to rape her, according to law enforcement, before tossing her clothes out the window of the car and dropping her off.
In February 2015, the sexual assault exam kit the woman completed after the crime was submitted to FDLE for DNA testing. Authorities say it yielded a match to two sexual assault cases that had been investigated by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in 1999.
Detectives reviewed those other cases and found similarities in the description of the attacker and car. Knives were used in each rape, investigators said.
But, at that point, the alleged rapist still hadn't been identified.
Then, in March 2020, the DNA evidence was resubmitted in an effort to initiate a familial search for the attacker. That was a dead-end, too.
In July, Parabon Nano Labs received the DNA evidence to do genetic genealogy testing. In September, detectives got a break.
Parabon Nano Labs found Byrd was a possible match for the DNA evidence, the affidavit said. Authorities' research suggested he lived in the area of the crimes in the late 90s, and his physical description was consistent with the one provided by the 22-year-old woman.
"It is also of note that James Byrd was arrested March of 1998 in Hollywood Florida for a rape allegation where he used a vehicle and a knife," authorities wrote in the affidavit. "That case was ultimately not prosecuted due to a lack of victim cooperation."
In November, authorities began surveillance of Byrd's most recent home in Belleview, Florida. During the surveillance, detectives say they were able to obtain a cigarette butt that Byrd smoked outside a doctor's office in The Villages.
That cigarette butt was sent to an FDLE lab for analysis, and authorities say it was a match. Byrd was ultimately arrested.
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