Police arrest man in 1987 rape case thanks to DNA, modern methods
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on September 26, 2016 10:55 AM
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Sylvester Earl Braswell
A Goldsboro man was arrested Friday and charged in a rape case which had gone unsolved since 1987, according to a press release from the Goldsboro police department.
Sylvester Earl Braswell, 52, of 1903 Palm St., was charged for the nearly 30-year-old crime after modern evidence examination techniques linked him to the sexual assault.
According to the release, on Feb. 1, 1987, a woman reported that she had been sexually assaulted while leaving a Pizza Inn restaurant. At the time, a Goldsboro police investigation turned up no suspects, and the case was considered cold.
Major Anthony Carmon with the Goldsboro police said that it is unclear why the investigation took so long to resurface.
"I wasn't around back then, and there is very little documentation from that time," he said.
In 2016, the case was assigned to investigator J. Sturgill. Carmen said that Sturgill processed the submitted evidence from 1987 and was able to bring up Braswell as a suspect.
"What [Sturgill] did was he looked at the evidence that had been submitted, and he had some evidence re-examined, and [Braswell] came up," Carmen said.
Carmen said that Sturgill "looked for things that we can do in 2016 that would not have been available" at the time of the alleged assault. He said that DNA testing was one of the methods Sturgill used to re-examine evidence.
Braswell was already in custody for probation violation when he came up as a suspect, Carmen said. He was charged with first degree rape, first degree kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, and breaking and entering.
Braswell was processed at the Wayne County jail and given an $805,000 secured bond. He is set to appear in court Oct. 3.