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Rapist convicted nearly 3 decades after crime
Jurors found Jerry Lee Pruitt guilty of kidnapping with bodily injury, rape, aggravated sodomy, aggravated assault, burglary and false imprisonment after deliberating for less than an hour.
MARIETTA, Ga. - A man linked to a 1997 sexual assault through DNA testing has been convicted nearly three decades later and sentenced to life in prison, the Cobb District Attorney’s Office announced.
What we know:
Jurors found Jerry Lee Pruitt guilty of kidnapping with bodily injury, rape, aggravated sodomy, aggravated assault, burglary and false imprisonment after deliberating for less than an hour. Superior Court Judge Julie Jacobs handed down two life sentences plus 20 years, to be served consecutively with a sentence he is already serving in Alabama for another sexual assault.
During the trial, three other women from Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee described assaults carried out in strikingly similar ways.
Jerry Lee Pruitt (Cobb County Sheriff's Office)
The backstory:
The case began in the early morning of Oct. 23, 1997, when a 27-year-old woman was attacked inside her Kennesaw apartment. Prosecutors said Pruitt threw a jacket over her head, forced her back inside and assaulted her before ordering her to shower and wash her clothes. A rape kit was collected at Kennestone Hospital, but investigators were unable to identify a suspect at the time.
The case went cold until 2018, when the federal Sexual Assault Kit Initiative led to the victim’s kit being retested. A male DNA profile was discovered, and in 2020 the FBI’s CODIS database matched it to Pruitt. In 2023, a swab confirmed the DNA as his.
Three other women from Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee testified during trial, describing assaults carried out in similar fashion. Chemists with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation also testified to the DNA evidence.
What they're saying:
The victim in the Kennesaw case waited nearly three decades for the verdict. "Waiting 28 years to see justice has been surreal. I’m beyond thankful for this verdict and ready to turn the page of this chapter in my life. I carry the voices of so many who have not been heard, and I stand for them," she said.
Prosecutors believe Pruitt could have dozens more victims. "We believe that there may be as many as a couple dozen individuals that were harmed by this defendant," Assistant District Attorney Julian Jordan said.
Cobb County District Attorney Sonya Allen said the case was the first in the county to go to trial under the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative. "This defendant is a predator of the worst kind, and I am so proud of Assistant District Attorney Julian Jordan and the SAKI team for bringing this case to trial. Justice was delayed in this case but delivered. It shows that time will not shield predators from accountability," Allen said.
Jordan added that the outcome was made possible by the courage of other women who testified. "She felt like her case was never going to get solved. She was there with her husband, and to see the emotion that they had, it made every single minute, every single hour of energy that we put into this case, so worth it," he said.
The Source: The Cobb County District Attorney's Office provided the details for this article.