Philadelphia Daily News
Friday, April 26, 2002

Here's how cops were led to Graves

DNA tests, fingerprints among the tools used to narrow case to him

By NICOLE WEISENSEE EGAN,
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Philadelphia police have had DNA samples from the Center City Rapist for nearly five years. They had a stunningly accurate sketch of the suspect and a wealth of other physical evidence.

But they didn't have a way to find the rapist.

Until last September.

That's when DNA tests confirmed that the Center City Rapist had also sexually assaulted six women in Fort Collins, Colo.

Using a combination of high-tech forensic science, the latest computer-tracking technology and old-fashioned shoe leather, cops here and in Fort Collins gradually narrowed the field of suspects until this week, when they arrested Senior Airman Troy Graves.

Once detectives knew the Philadelphia and Fort Collins rapists were the same person, they used sophisticated commercial computer databases, searching for people who had both Fort Collins and Philadelphia addresses, said one law-enforcement source. That led to 40 to 50 names, the source said.

Investigators immediately eliminated from their list all the women.

Fort Collins police passed on to their Philadelphia counterparts the names of some men they couldn't find.

One, according to the source, was Troy Graves.

Within the last month, detectives began gathering research on Graves.

They found he had enlisted in the Air Force shortly after the Center City Rapist's last attack in August 1999. Military officials revealed Graves' blood type. It was the same as the Center City Rapist's.

Police got more excited when they learned Graves was stationed at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo., about 50 miles from Fort Collins. Graves had lived in Fort Collins since April 2001, one month before the first attack in that city.

Earlier this week, Fort Collins cops asked the 29-year-old high-school dropout to come talk with them. He arrived about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Six hours later, based on a fingerprint he provided them that matched one left at a crime scene, he was arrested for the Fort Collins crimes.

On Wednesday, Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson announced that DNA tests proved that Graves also had murdered Schieber and sexually assaulted five other women in Philadelphia.

Homicide Sgt. Paul Musi, whose team of detectives were assigned to the Schieber case from the get-go, credited Special Victims Unit Officer Carl LaTorre with linking the Philadelphia crimes to those in Fort Collins.

LaTorre diligently read the teletypes from police agencies across the country. When he read about Fort Collins' serial rapist in August, he immediately had the DNA there compared with the Center City Rapist's.

Ken Coluzzi, who headed the Center City Rapist investigation until he became police chief in Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County, in October 2000, said linking the crimes was the break investigators needed.

"You can find that common denominator between the two jurisdictions and you work together with that jurisdiction to narrow suspects down," he said.

Working together, Philadelphia and Fort Collins investigators filled gaps in each other's evidence.

The rapist blindfolded victims in Fort Collins, so cops there didn't have a sketch.

They used Philadelphia's.

In Fort Collins, the rapist left a fingerprint and that's what they matched with Graves on Tuesday. *