DNA leads to arrest in 35-year-old Florida rape case

ORLANDO, Fla. – A man has been arrested in a rape case that sat unsolved for nearly four decades until the case’s DNA evidence was tested last year.

The Orlando Sentinel reports 58-year-old Leslie Lovan Hammock was booked into the county jail Monday. Court records say DNA samples taken from the unnamed woman in the 1983 attack were found to match Hammock. He is accused of raping the woman at knife-point and fleeing.

Hammock was imprisoned on a conviction of a similar crime until 2016. He was sentenced to seven years for kidnapping a woman at gunpoint in 2010, raping her and beating her unconscious.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokeswoman Angela Starke says the agency didn’t start testing DNA in its labs until 1989.

It’s unclear if Hammock has a lawyer.

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Information from: Orlando Sentinel, http://www.orlandosentinel.com/