DNA Leads Brooklyn Cold Case Squad to Rape Suspect
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A man who allegedly raped a young woman in a basement apartment in 2002 is behind bars today, after the New York Police Department’s Cold Case Squad linked him to the crime using DNA evidence, police officials said.
The man, identified by police as 20-year-old Fabion Whyte of East Orange, N.J., was apprehended in Brooklyn on Tuesday after he slipped past a joint task force of NYPD detectives and officers from the emergency services unit at an office building in Midtown, police said. Following an investigative lead, officers surrounded the building at about 5 p.m., police said.
They then began a systematic search of the building, using police dogs to seek out Whyte, police said. But as soon as he realized police were moving in to arrest him, he likely fled the building without detection, police said.
Using another investigative lead several hours later, detectives found him at a bodega in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, where he was arrested at about 8 p.m., police said.
Detectives from the Brooklyn Cold Case Squad, a specialized unit in the police department that investigates closed criminal cases using state-of-the-art technology, identified Whyte by matching a DNA sample taken after his 2004 robbery conviction with DNA taken by a forensic examiner after the rape in Brooklyn, police said. To corroborate the DNA match, they showed the rape victim a photo line-up of suspects, including an image of Whyte.
The girl identified Whyte as the man who raped her in 2002, police said. Convicted felons have their DNA taken before they can leave prison, police officials said. The DNA is added to a database used by detectives in investigations and linking crimes, especially charges of rape, police said.
Whyte has five prior arrests, including robbery, a weapons charge, and a charge of criminal mischief for breaking the window of an ambulance while emergency personnel were helping an injured person, police said. He spent one year in prison after pleading guilty to charges of robbery in the first degree and assault in the second degree, police said. He was released from prison in March, according to a spokesman at the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.
Whyte has six aliases, including the name Fais Phabion, a spokesman from the district attorney’s office said.
