Decades-old killings of siblings reach trial after DNA breakthrough
The trial of a man accused of killing two siblings in DeKalb County is underway, more than three decades since the stabbings took place.
Kenneth Perry, 55, was indicted in June on one count of rape and theft by taking, two counts of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated battery, two counts of possession of a knife during the commission of a felony and four counts of aggravated assault in the deaths of 46-year-old John Sumpter and his sister Pamela Sumpter, 43, at their Redan apartment on July 15, 1990.
Perry is also accused of raping Pamela Sumpter. She didn’t immediately succumb to her injuries and was able to speak with police before she died. Investigators were able to use forensic genetic genealogy, known as FGG, to confirm Perry was a match to DNA collected in a rape kit taken from Pamela Sumpter following the assault.
According to 11Alive, DeKalb County Senior Assistant District Attorney Shannon Hodder told jurors during opening statements Tuesday that it was the start of the process of “holding him accountable for those horrific crimes and for providing justice for the Sumpter family who has lived in a nightmare ever since.”
Hodder said Pamela Sumpter woke up the night of July 15, 1990 with a naked man armed with a knife in her room before she was raped, strangled and stabbed multiple times. Hodder said Pamela Sumpter tried to call for help after the assault but all the phone cords in the home had been cut.
It was when she was looking for help that she found her brother’s lifeless body in the living room, Hodder said. She was finally able to get help from neighbors, who she told about her attacker.
Hodder said Pamela told neighbors and police that her brother, who was gay, brought a man home after driving around town and going out to a club. She said her brother felt comfortable with the man, who she later identified as her attacker, but she didn’t, so she went upstairs to sleep, Hodder told the jury.
Pamela Sumpter was hospitalized for her wounds and a rape kit was collected. She was also able to give police a detailed description of the attacker, including that she believed he had recently moved from Detroit or was visiting from there. Pamela would die weeks later on August 5.
Her rape kit remained untested for decades, as the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, was in its infancy as a pilot program in 1990. The database was not formalized until 1994 and didn’t become operational until 1998. Hodder said the rape kit remained secured at the DeKalb County Police Department.
Perry’s identity never surfaced in any DNA databases accessible to law enforcement until 2022 when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation sent off the evidence as part of an effort to work through a backlog of pre-1999 rape kits.
Investigators were able to find a match to an alleged rape in Michigan that was never prosecuted, but where the alleged victim had identified Perry as the suspect. Officials later found out a man with an identical name was living in Loganville, just a county away from the Sumpters’ home.
It wasn’t until the DA’s office was awarded a federal grant for the use of FGG that they said they knew Perry was their guy. FGG taps into the vast web of genetic information housed in public genealogy databases and, combined with other investigative techniques, can help detectives identify once-anonymous suspects, victims and missing persons.
The FGG analysis allowed investigators to secure arrest warrants against Perry. Once in custody, a search warrant was executed to get his DNA, which matched the samples collected in the Michigan and DeKalb cases.
Perry’s attorney Daryl Queen called the Sumpters deaths “tragic” and “brutal,” but said some of the evidence is circumstantial and doesn’t prove that his client actually killed the siblings.
“Some things are clear but it doesn’t tell you the whole picture. When you see the whole picture, you’d be left with questions,” Queen said during opening statements.
Queen acknowledged that Perry’s DNA was at the scene but said his client did not kill anyone the night of July 15, 1990.
“Now the DNA evidence is clear but it’s not sufficient. The fingerprints, they are somewhat clear but they are not sufficient,” he said.
Prosecutors said they intend to call a series of witnesses throughout the trial, including now-retired investigators who worked the case back in 1990. The trial is expected to be paused Thursday and Friday, before continuing on Monday.
“We’re going to ask you to return a verdict that is long overdue in this case. A verdict that will finally give the Sumpter family justice, that will hold this man accountable for what he did to John and Pamela Sumpter,” Hodder told jurors.
Metro Atlanta’s cold cases solved using forensic genetic genealogy
Several metro Atlanta cold cases have already been solved using forensic genetic genealogy, and many more are still pending as investigators work to trace their ancestry.
Debbie Lynn Randall, 1972
One of the more recent cases to be solved using forensic genetic genealogy is also one of the oldest: the 1972 rape and killing of 9-year-old Debbie Lynn Randall. She was abducted while going to a laundromat across the street from her Marietta home that January. Her body was found in a nearby wooded area 16 days later.
In September 2023, the Cobb County district attorney identified William B. Rose of Mableton as her killer, though it was too late for him to face justice. He took his own life in 1974, having never been on investigators’ radar.
Baby India, 2019
In May 2023, Forsyth County officials announced they had identified the mother of a newborn who had been placed in a plastic bag and left in the woods along an isolated stretch of Daves Creek Road in June 2019. A family returning from a vacation heard her cries, which led them to her.
The child, nicknamed Baby India, survived. Her mother, Karima Jiwani, was found after genetic genealogy led investigators first to the father and then to Jiwani, who was charged with criminal attempt to commit murder.
Rebecca “Becky” Burke, 1993
In March 2023, DeKalb County officials identified a woman whose body was found in September 1993 in a wooded area just outside Tucker. They believe 52-year-old Rebecca “Becky” Burke likely died due to blunt-force trauma two weeks earlier. Her body appeared to have been intentionally concealed behind an electrical unit covered in pine straw and branches.
Detectives still need help learning what led to Burke’s death and who might have been responsible. She was last known to have lived in Cobb County.
Lorinzo Novoa Williams, 1999
In 2020, Cobb officials identified 48-year-old Lorinzo Novoa Williams as the suspect in three rapes dating to 1999. DNA from rape kits did not return a match at the time, but re-testing and submitting the profile to GEDmatch ultimately led investigators to Williams, who had been living in El Dorado, Arkansas.
He was found dead from an apparent suicide a day after being questioned.
Lorrie Ann Smith, 1997
Fulton County police arrested Jerry Lee in 2018 after investigators used genealogy to link him to the 1997 killing of 28-year-old Lorrie Ann Smith. She had been shot several times in the back at her home on Stonewall Tell Road.
Lee was the first Georgia murder suspect to be identified using forensic genetic genealogy.
Marlene Standridge, 1982
In 2021, Gwinnett County police identified human remains found in unincorporated Stone Mountain in 1982 as 22-year-old Marlene Standridge, who was believed to have been kidnapped from Piedmont Park in the early 1970s while taking a stroll with her two children. The children were later found alone.
Detectives uncovered Standridge’s identity when they matched her DNA to her daughter, Janis Adams. They consider James Willie Brown a likely suspect in Standridge’s killing due to his similar offenses in the ‘70s. Brown was executed in November 2003 for a 1975 killing and has been tied to at least two others.
About the Author
