CMPD Charges Suspect in Cold Case Crimes

CHARLOTTE, NC — Tonight, a suspect is behind bars, facing charges in two, decades-old sexual assault cases.

CMPD is using grants to submit evidence from hundreds of cases, trying to help sexual assault victims find justice.

Two cases. Two victims. And finally, decades later, a suspect behind bars.

Detectives with CMPD’s Sexual Assault Cold Case Unit arrested and charged 49-year-old Zellie Edwards with two counts of rape, and one count of kidnapping, for sexual assault cases from 1988 and 1994.

“Justice, sometimes, can be slow,” says Lt. Melanie Peacock with CMPD’s Violent Crimes Division. “But I think it’s just a testament to the fact that we don’t give up. And technology is now catching up. So things that we couldn’t do back at the time, with DNA testing, we can do now.”

CMPD is using money from federal grants to send sexual assault kits out to be tested; testing that can cost up to $1,500 per kit.

1,185 have been sent so far. 817 of those have been returned.

“If a profile is developed as part of a kit, we submit it to the data base,” says CMPD Crime Lab Director Matthew Mathis. “If there is an offender, or if there is a connected case, already in the data base, that connection will be made.”

CMPD says Edwards has a criminal history, but no record for sexual assault. He wasn’t on their radar until a hit came back.

DNA testing wasn’t available in 1988, when a 16-year-old girl was walking home on Nations Ford Road, and was pulled into a vacant apartment and raped.

Or in 1994, when a 17-year-old girl was walking home on West Boulevard, and was taken into the woods and raped.

Both victims are relieved by the arrest.

“Both are local, still, and were very, very appreciative,” says Lt. Peacock. “Both of them were very grateful, and I think they both each made the comment that they were just glad they hadn’t been forgotten about.”

The CMPD Sexual Assault Cold Case Unit has reviewed 2,886 cases since it began in 2006. 260 have been cleared. 80 by arrest.