A woman who was raped 34 years ago in Cobb County may now find closure after investigators identified her rapist using DNA evidence and he pleaded guilty to multiple charges.
Christopher Lee Milton, 58, pleaded guilty to rape, aggravated assault and aggravated sodomy in connection with the 1990 incident, Cobb District Attorney Flynn D. Broady said. Milton was sentenced to 13 years in prison followed by 17 on probation. He was also issued a permanent restraining order prohibiting him from contacting the victim.
In a statement shared by Broady, the woman who was raped said she had overcome the violent incident in the three decades that her case sat dormant.
“I want him to know he did not ruin my life. I decided to take my life back,” the woman said through her victim advocate. “This is something I thought would never be resolved. I’m a Christian and I forgive him. But he still deserves to be punished.”
Broady credited the woman for her determination as she rebuilt her life and continued to work with investigators.
“I want to commend the victim for the work she has put in to establish a life and career for herself without letting that horrible day define her. She has continued to work with our prosecutor and investigator on this case through the years,” Broady said.
The incident happened March 5, 1990, according to the DA’s office. The woman was walking along Windy Hill Road near I-75 when Milton kidnapped and sexually assaulted her. She immediately reported the rape to local law enforcement, but they were not able to identify Milton and the trail went cold, Broady said.
In 2016, the woman’s rape kit was sent to the GBI after the Georgia General Assembly passed Senate Bill 304, which mandated all untested rape kits to be submitted to the state crime lab, according to Broady. The testing resulted in a DNA profile for an unidentified man in 2018, and two years later, the GBI received a DNA match linking Milton to the crime.
His DNA appeared in the Combined DNA Index System, a state and national-level database of DNA surrendered by felons. In Georgia, felons are required to submit their DNA to the CODIS database, where it is stored for identification purposes, similar to fingerprints.
Milton previously spent three years in state prison after he was convicted of robbery in 1995. Cobb court records also show he was convicted on drug charges after a 2006 arrest and found guilty of making terroristic threats in 2015.
Milton was finally arrested in connection with the decades-old rape charges in November 2021 and has remained in the Cobb Adult Detention Center since then, jail records show.
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