Rapist Gets Life in Prison in Montgomery County Cold Case
Richard E. Ricketts has been sentenced to life in prison for the October 24, 1977 rape of a woman in Montgomery County, Maryland. In 2011, The Montgomery County cold-case detectives reopened one of their oldest unsolved cases and tested old evidence for DNA that led them to a direct match to Richard Ricketts. The DNA test from the victim’s body was checked against a national database of convicts that matched Ricketts’s DNA. Ricketts had been convicted in Florida in 1999 of burglary and sexual battery. Ricketts went on trial in Montgomery County in February 2013 and was convicted by a jury in April 2013 of first-degree rape and two counts of first-degree sex offense. Now in his mid-sixties, Ricketts will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Source: Forensic Magazine and the Washington Post
Read the article here: Forensic Magazine and The Washington Post
Citation: Morse, D. (2013, April 26). Rapist gets life in montgomery county cold case. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/rapist-gets-life-in-montgomery-county-cold-case/2013/04/26/4052ada2-ae8f-11e2-a986-eec837b1888b_story.html
[Abstract by ForensIQ intern, Andrea Williams]