A convicted rapist who posed as an apartment handyman to attack victims nearly 30 years ago is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday, authorities said.
A Fulton County jury Friday found Daniel Wade, now 63, guilty of rape, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy, aggravated child cruelty, burglary and robbery by intimidation in connection with a series of rapes that occurred between January 1986 and January 1987, authorities said.
Prosecutors said Wade's five female victims were between 10 and 64 years old. He was dubbed the "maintenance man" rapist because he pretended to be one to gain entry to apartments along the I-85 corridor in northeast Atlanta, authorities said.
The cases had gone unsolved for nearly 20 years with no fresh leads before Fulton County District Attorney's cold case unit teamed with Atlanta Police Department sex crimes detectives to revive the case in August 2007, authorities said.
Investigators linked DNA from all five Fulton County victims and three other victims from DeKalb and Gwinnett counties to a single unknown suspect, prosecutors said.
In March 2011, investigators were able to positively match the DNA from the eight cases to Wade, prosecutors said. He was in federal prison in Kentucky on unknown charges at the time, authorities said.
Prosecutors indicted Wade in September for the Fulton County rapes.
He will be sentenced Wednesday at 4 p.m., and faces a maximum of six life sentences plus 190 years, prosecutors said.
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