Nearly four decades have waited for resolution, and now a 76-year-old man has been arrested in connection to an unsolved 1986 sexual assault in Cherokee County. Thomas Lamar Keith, a resident of Fulton County and listed sex offender, faces charges of rape and kidnapping following a match in the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), marking a significant breakthrough in a case that went cold due to technological restraints at the time of the crime, as reported by FOX 5 Atlanta.
Back in January of 1986, the assault left a lasting scar on a 19-year-old woman, an employee at a convenience store situated on Hickory Flat Highway; this was a time when our grasp of DNA's potential was but in its infancy, and despite collecting a sexual assault kit, the lack of technological capability stymied any hope of finding her assailant for years, investigators at the time had no leads, and here we arrive some 40 years later with the shackles of the past finally giving way to modern science's embrace. Patty Pan, a public information officer for the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office, said in a statement obtained by Atlanta News First, "Technology wasn’t what it is this day and age, so it’s pretty amazing."
The victim, whose identity remains protected, expressed a profound sense of relief and gratitude toward the investigators' undying efforts, “I never thought this day would ever come. I want to thank the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office and the detectives who worked this case. Thank you for never giving up. You all have restored my faith in the justice system,” she told FOX 5 Atlanta. Sheriff Frank Reynolds echoed the sentiment, emphasizing the importance of achieving justice for victims regardless of time's passage.
Keith, whose history includes a 2003 conviction for child molestation and cruelty to children, now finds himself without bond in the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center, while investigators have linked his DNA to another sexual assault case from the same period, they are diligently working to pull yet more secrets from the shadows of history's oversight. "This arrest is a huge step towards getting much deserved justice for our victims no matter how much time has passed,” said Reynolds as he and his team perhaps look upon the horizon of their own resolve, knowing this fight, though won, does not mark an end but a continuing promise to those still seeking their day of reckoning, Patty Pan from the Sheriff’s Office, reaffirmed the message of enduring justice and the relentless pursuit of it, adding to her earlier interview with Atlanta News First, “It's important to get justice for victims, no matter how much time has gone by."
