Police solve home break-in, rape cold case from 28 years ago in Charlotte
Years of investigating and testing DNA evidence led Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police to arrest a suspect in a decades old cold case.
On June 17, 1994, a 39-year-old woman was sexually assaulted at knifepoint, according to CMPD. A man, police said, had attacked her after breaking into her home.
She reported the assault to police and completed a sexual assault test kit. Over the years, police would revisit the evidence, according to a news release Tuesday by CMPD.
Nearly three decades of great investigative work have led to our Cold Case Unit charging a suspect in a sexual assault investigation from 1994. This past Thursday, James Wayne Ingersoll was arrested in Concord, North Carolina with the help of SLED & @ColumbiaPDSC (1/2)
— CMPD News (@CMPD) May 9, 2023
Five years ago investigators finally had a lead.
In 2018, and again in 2019, the DNA samples from the scene were linked to a sexual assault from 2010 in Columbia, South Carolina, CMPD said.
Three years later, detectives used forensic genetic genealogy tests to identify a suspect, according to CMPD.
A DNA sample was obtained from James Wayne Ingersoll, 50, and it matched both sexual assaults, CMPD officials said Tuesday.
Last week, CMPD arrested Ingersoll in Concord. He is in the Mecklenburg County jail charged with first-degree rape, burglary and is listed as a former fugitive, according to records from the sheriff’s office.
The victims of the sexual assault have been notified of his arrest, police said.
