Investigators say DNA links Fort Lauderdale man to 2016 rape case in Georgia

A DeKalb County, Georgia, grand jury indicted a South Florida man on rape and kidnapping charges in an attack on a then-19-year-old woman who was brutally attacked after responding to a Craigslist ad in 2016, the county’s district attorney said this week.

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On July 27, 2016, the teen answered the online ad seeking an overnight babysitter. The pay was $300.

The men who placed the ad arranged a rideshare car to pick her up and take her to an apartment at 700 Jolly Avenue in the town of Clarkson, the DeKalb district attorney said in a press release.

When she arrived, two men were there, but no children. The woman immediately tried to leave, but, one of the men, 42-year-old Julius Hunter, held her captive and raped her for several hours, the DA said.

Prosecutors did not say if the other man took part in the attack.

The men released her the next day, and she got a taxi, asking the driver to call 911. She met with police at a nearby gas station, and the officers took her to a hospital, where she was administered a rape exam.

In 2017, Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents confirmed there was male DNA from the rape kit, but they were not able to match it with DNA stored in a database called the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, according to DeKalb prosecutors.

But the DNA from the kit matched an unidentified perpetrator from two other kits collected in rape investigations in DeKalb and Gwinnett counties in 2016 and 2017, prosecutors say.

In 2021, Hunter pleaded no contest to sexual battery and was sentenced to 11 years of probation after Fort Lauderdale police arrested him for a May 15, 2021, attack on his then-girlfriend. She had accused him of beating her with his fists, a beer bottle and the bathroom door as she lay on the floor as well as forcing her to perform oral sex on him, according to court records.

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His arrest report also states that Hunter strangled the woman with his knee while pinning her to the floor.

Fort Lauderdale police entered his DNA into the CODIS database, and GBI agents were notified that it matched the DNA in the three Georgia kits collected in 2016 and 2017, according to the DA.

Investigators were able to link Hunter to the July 2016 case, but they have not been able to connect him to the two other cases, even though his DNA matched those kits. Prosecutors did not say why they have been unable to tie him to those cases despite the DNA matches.

However, the details in those attacks were very similar, according to prosecutors.

In both attacks, the suspect lured the victims using Craigslist ads soliciting women for jobs like babysitting, modeling, dancing and massages, the District Attorney’s Office said, adding that some of the victims even met the man who raped them at the same Jolly Avenue apartment.

This leads investigators to believe Hunter might have victimized other women.

Fort Lauderdale police and U.S. Marshals arrested Hunter in South Florida on Aug. 13, and he was extradited to Georgia. He is charged with rape, aggravated sodomy and kidnapping.

Georgia investigators are asking anyone, including those who he might have victimized, with information about Hunter to call the DeKalb District Attorney’s tip line at 404-371-2444.

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