Editor's note: The News-Times typically does not report on stories involving suicide. An exception was made due to the nature of the crimes outlined in the story.
An El Dorado man who died by suicide in December was posthumously confirmed as the assailant in three rape cases in Georgia.
El Dorado investigators responded to a missing persons call near the 1200 block of East Avenue Dec. 11. They later found the body of 48-year-old Lorinzo Williams in the wooded area behind one of the homes, Union County Coroner Stormey Primm later told The News-Times.
According to a press release from Cobb Judicial Circuit District Attorney Joyette M. Holmes, Williams’ DNA matched a suspect profile built from three 1999 rape kits.
IN GEORGIA
Between June and October of 1999 within a three-mile radius in an Atlanta suburb, three adult women reported assaults to Cobb County Police. According to the release, the women reported they were assaulted in the pre-dawn hours and woke to find an unknown man standing over them.
Upon reporting, each woman underwent medical exams that collected and preserved semen left by the rapist. The DNA from the kits was identical, but never matched any known offender in the combined DNA Index System.
In 2018, Theresa Schiefer, senior district attorney for Cobb County and who is assigned to the Georgia Sexual Assault Kit Initiative task force, began looking at the case upon request from a cold case unit. According to the release, she determined advanced DNA testing would help identify the rapist.
After receiving $10,000 for the testing from the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, the profile was submitted to Parabon NanoLabs in 2019. The company created a physical appearance of the suspect using phenotyping, matched the DNA to the public website GEDmatch.com and found a potential ancestor for the rapist. A genetic tree was then built to find a possible suspect.
The task force and cold case unit researched the possible suspect and discovered he lived in metro Atlanta during the time of the crimes.
COURT RECORDS
Between 1998 and 2002, Williams was charged in two separate criminal cases in Gwinnett and Cobb counties, respectively: felony peeping tom, public indecency and a misdemeanor simple battery; and three counts of burglary and three counts of theft by receiving, one of which was a felony and two as misdemeanors, according to county records.
In the six-count case in Cobb County, Williams was arrested in 2001, found guilty and served time in the county jail. He was then placed on probation for eight years on July 18, 2002 and then discharged Jan. 20, 2010.
Kim Isaza, public information officer for Holmes’ office, said county jails in Georgia don’t typically collect DNA.
INVESTIGATION
Williams was the subject of an on-going investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in December 2019. On Dec. 10, El Dorado police and the Arkansas state police helped the Georgia investigators serve a search warrant for Williams’ DNA.
According to the release, investigators interviewed Williams about the rapes from 1999. He denied any involvement in the cases.
As Georgia investigators were returning to Cobb County, they received word Williams was reported as a missing person.
Lt. Scott Harwell with the El Dorado Police Department said local investigators did not find a suicide note where Williams’ body was discovered.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s Forensic Biology Section expedited the DNA test from Williams and posthumously confirmed it as a match to the DNA from the 1999 rape kits.
According to the release, senior prosecutor Schiefer spoke with the women after the match was confirmed and were overcome with emotion.
"One woman said she often watched television shows about cold cases being solved and told us, ‘I always wondered when it would be my turn,’” Schiefer said. “I feel very fortunate that we could provide some answers to these women after all this time. We want anyone who has experienced sexual assault to know that we will continue to work their cases in hopes that their turn will come, too.”