ATLANTA — Fulton County prosecutors were able to solve two rape cold cases and get convictions on consecutive days.
An executive district attorney says the system failed the two victims for years, but a unit that specializes in using DNA technology on old sexual assault kits has done its best to rectify that.
Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne spoke to one of the victims who finally got justice.
“Those years that nothing was done, it had a mental effect, emotional effect and it ended up in some physical effects,” she said.
“It was some sense of justice because you don’t get to do it again. You don’t give to hurt anyone else,” she said about the man who was convicted.
“We need people to know that no matter how long ago you were victimized,” Fulton DA Fani Willis said. “We intend to fight for you.”
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Jai Scott Williams and Leonard Cross were convicted for rape and other charges in separate cases, but with some common factors.
The brutal rapes occurred in abandoned dwellings. Both guilty verdicts happened the same week on consecutive days. Both were solved years after the crimes by the Fulton County DA’s federally-funded Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) unit.
Rape kits in old cases, most of which had been lost in the system for years, are tested again by a DNA database containing the DNA of convicted felons and others.
The SAKI unit focuses on the victims who were for a time abandoned by the system.
“Absolutely, they were abandoned, they were failed, and they were not believed,” Executive District Attorney Julianna Peterson Eley told Winne. “They were actually fought for finally after so many years.”
Peterson Eley says in the Williams case, the victim was 19 when the attack happened in 2014.
“Did you believe you would ever get justice?” Winne asked the victim.
“No, it had been so long,” she said.
“I think the testimony of our victim, it was very powerful. She was very brave. She was able to get on the stand and tell strangers what he did to her,” Senior Assistant DA Katherine Reimer said.
Chief Senior Assistant DA Christina Robinson, who tried the case with Reimer, said Williams abducted his victim at knife point as she walked down Cleveland Ave.
“He eventually said, ‘You think you’re too good for me. I’m gonna show you and I’m going to take you and you’re going to become a woman tonight.’”
Robinson said Williams had been charged with raping another woman in 2006, but it was dismissed when the victim couldn’t be located.
But that victim testified in Williams trial this time to establish a pattern. Judge Robert McBurney gave Williams two consecutive life without parole sentences.
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In the Leonard Cross case, Peterson Eley says the victim was just 14 years old when he raped her in 2007.
“She walked from that apartment complex and walked to her school and reported it there immediately,” she said.
“In 2021, when our investigators did an amazing job of finding the victim. They spoke with her and she remembered an exact person and those exact lips. So I think that was something that she never forgot as it was something it continuously bothered her,” Assistant DA Marquez Jones said.
Cross is scheduled for sentencing on April 14 and the state will ask for the maximum sentence: life plus 20 years. Defense attorneys released the following statement.
“The Fulton Public Defender’s Office represented Mr. Cross and Mr. Williams in their separate cases and will continue to fight for them as they navigate the post-trial legal process. We must decline further comment at this time.”
In Williams’ case, a motion for a new trial has been filed, suggesting grounds including the verdict is contrary to the evidence.
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