HENRICO COUNTY, Va. (WTVR) --Henrico police want to know if a man they charged with rape on Tuesday in connection with a cold case could be connected to any other unsolved rape cases in the area.
Kevin Lamont Spencer, 44, is charged with three rapes that occurred in June 1990, September 1990, and June 1991.
The assaults happened in the 200, 300, and 700 blocks of North Laburnum Avenue, according to Henrico Police.
“Detectives” research, as well as DNA collected as a result of the investigation, led to charges being placed. The victims, all females, one in her late teens and two in their 20’s at the time of the assaults, were strangers to Mr. Spencer,” Henrico Police wrote in an email. “Mr. Spencer has been served with 11 indictments.”
Henrico Police Detective Joe Schihl described Spencer as a “serial rapist” in a Tuesday afternoon press conference.
According to an archived article from the Richmond Times Dispatch from June 14, 1991, a 17-year-old girl told police a man broke into her apartment in the middle of the night and raped her.
In another article from September 27, 1990, another woman told police her attacker came in through her bedroom window.
Detective Schihl said detectives working those cases in the early 90s noticed similarities.
“I think they felt it was the same person,” Schihl said.
Schihl said Henrico Police were finally able to charge Spencer using DNA evidence collected from the women, and obtained from Spencer when he went to jail recently on unrelated charges.
Spencer pleaded guilty to cocaine possession in Richmond in August of 2013.
“They had him in custody, and they had his DNA they ran it through the database, and it came back matching all these individual scenarios,” Schihl said.
CBS 6 also learned from the Virginia Department of Corrections that Spencer was convicted of robbery in 1988. An old Richmond Times Dispatch article from September 14, 1988 shows that Spencer was sentenced to prison for holding up a supermarket. He was sentenced to 20 years, 14 suspended for the robbery. For use of a firearm in a felony he was sentenced to two years.
The Department of Corrections told CBS 6 that Spencer was sentenced to eight years in prison, but he was released on discretionary parole in 1989 by the Virginia Parole Board, roughly one year before police said he raped his first victim.
He didn't serve half of his sentence.
“The idea was that the parole board would look at each individual case and make a decision about whether they are a risk or not and, obviously, they don`t always get it right,” CBS 6 Legal Expert Todd Stone said.
Henrico police would not comment on what happened with the case back in the early 1990s.
