A Cobb County grand jury has indicted a man on charges he allegedly kidnapped and raped a woman more than two decades ago in Smyrna.
Walter Waites Bullard was indicted Friday by the grand jury on one count each of rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, aggravated sodomy and false imprisonment in the February 1994 attack.
According to an arrest warrant, Bullard on Feb. 23, 1994, entered B & H Cleaners at 2640 Herodian Way SE, brandished a firearm to a female employee and told her to give him all the money in the business.
She did what she was told, and Bullard allegedly forced the woman into the break room where he sexually assaulted her at gunpoint, the warrant said.
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A rape kit submitted by Smyrna police last May matched a sample the Georgia Bureau of Investigation had in its database, Smyrna police spokesman Sgt. Louis Defense previously said.
The Georgia General Assembly in 2016 passed a law requiring the testing of old sexual assault kits held by law enforcement agencies. A grant issued through the Bureau of Justice Assistance paid for the testing of those kits.
As some of the samples in those kits returned as matching offenders in FBI’s database, detectives began looking for ways to handle the follow-up investigation and prosecution of those cases, said Cobb County District Attorney’s spokeswoman Kim Isaza.
A Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant was created, and the Georgia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council was awarded a grant. Following the award, the Council created the Metro Atlanta Cold Case Sexual Assault Task Force to prosecute cold cases that resulted from testing previously unsubmitted or untested kits.
Cobb Senior Assistant District Attorney Theresa Schiefer and investigator Christine Nerbonne were assigned to the task force to investigate and prosecute unsolved sexual assault cases in Cobb.
Bullard, 43, has been held at the Cobb County Jail since Feb. 1 without bond. Cobb County District Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Kim Isaza said arraignment for Bullard has not been scheduled.
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