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Albany man receives two life sentences for 1988 cold case rape and kidnapping

By FOX 5 Atlanta Digital Team
Published  June 3, 2025 8:59pm EDT
DeKalb County
FOX 5 Atlanta
Reginald Colwell article

Reginald Colwell (DeKalb County Sheriff's Office)

The Brief

    • Reginald Colwell was sentenced to two life terms plus 20 years for kidnapping, raping, and assaulting a woman in a 1988 cold case.
    • The conviction was based on DNA evidence from a preserved sexual assault kit, matched to Colwell in 2019 through a federal initiative.
    • Colwell's life sentences are subject to 1988 parole eligibility guidelines due to the crime's occurrence date.

DECATUR, Ga. - An Albany man has been sentenced to two life terms plus 20 years in prison after being convicted of kidnapping, raping, and assaulting a woman in a 1988 cold case, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

A DeKalb County jury on May 20 found 58-year-old Reginald Colwell guilty on charges of kidnapping, rape, and aggravated assault for the December 30, 1988, attack. Superior Court Judge Gregory A. Adams, who presided over the trial, handed down the sentence on Tuesday, ordering the terms to be served consecutively.

The backstory:

According to investigators, the 20-year-old victim reported the rape to DeKalb County Police after being attacked while leaving her apartment on Weatherly Drive in unincorporated Stone Mountain. As she locked the front door, a man wearing a ski mask held a knife to her throat and forced her into nearby woods, where he sexually assaulted her and threatened to kill her if she resisted.

The victim fled to a nearby neighborhood once the attacker ran off, and a resident helped her call her boyfriend, who took her to the police station. Officers recovered her purse and other items scattered in the woods and transported her to Grady Memorial Hospital for a sexual assault examination.

Although DNA testing was not available at the time, the sexual assault kit was preserved by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

In 2015, DeKalb County joined a federally funded effort through the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI), which aimed to process long-untested rape kits. In 2019, testing from the victim’s case produced a CODIS match to Colwell. A court-ordered DNA sample confirmed the match.

Prosecutors said Colwell had been living in DeKalb County at the time of the attack.

What's next:

Because the crime occurred in 1988, Colwell's life sentences fall under the parole eligibility guidelines in place at the time.

The Source: The DeKalb County District Attorney's Office provided the details on the case. The DeKalb County Sheriff's Office provided the mug shot and arrest record.

DeKalb CountyNewsCrime and Public Safety