Body camera video shows APD arrest fugitive on Most Wanted List for rapes from 1980s

ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News has obtained body camera video that shows police arresting a fugitive wanted for two horrific sex crimes from the 1980s.

Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne spoke exclusively with the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office about how detectives cracked the cold case.

In the body camera footage, you can see the moment Atlanta officers arrested Randy Baugh and escorted him off a MARTA bus last Thursday.

“White T-shirt back pack. He’s your guy...Stand up, stand up.”

“I got him.”

“Putting on cuffs behind his back.”

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Atlanta Police Department officers arrested Baugh for the rapes of two women, one in 1986 and another in 1988. The arrest took him off APD’s Most Wanted List.

“This day has been a very long time coming,” Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Julianna Peterson Eley told Winne.

Eley says the charges against Baugh grew out of DNA matches linking Baugh to rape kits from both cases.

“We were able to test these very old kits from the 1980s due to a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, a SAKI grant,” she said.

Shealane Gilliam-Smith is the lead detective on the case and an Atlanta police investigator assigned to the SAKI unit. SAKI stands for Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, a joint project of the Fulton DA’s Office, APD and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

The unit tests old kits from the 1980s and 1990s with new technology.

“Has he maintained his innocence?” Winne asked

“Absolutely,” Peterson Eley said.

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The prosecutor says Baugh was convicted in 1978 of armed robbery and aggravated assault with intent to commit rape. He was sentenced to cumulative 10 years, but didn’t serve it all because he was back on the streets by the 1986 rape.

If the allegations are true, Baugh’s recent arrest was a long time coming in more ways than one. Peterson Eley says the APD fugitive unit, APD Zone 4 and MARTA police did a great job leading to Baugh’s arrest last Thursday.

He had originally been arrested in Nov. 2023 for the 1986 and 1988 cases, but escaped from Grady Memorial Hospital.

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