DNA leads police to suspect in schoolgirls rape

Crime & Safety Headlines More Crime&Safety Crime Stoppers More Crimestoppers Crime Databases More Databases Continuing stories More Ongoing Stories Local Stories from ThisWeek By Jim Woods The Columbus Dispatch Friday April 4, 2014 7:48 AM

A DNA match led Columbus police yesterday afternoon to arrest a man at his South Linden home in the rape of a 13-year-old girl who was assaulted while waiting for a school bus.

Antonio J. Fillmore, 36, of 2321 Gerbert Rd., is charged with two counts of rape. Columbus police accuse him of the Tuesday morning sexual assault of the girl behind a vacant house in North Linden.

Fillmore was in the Franklin County jail last night and is scheduled to appear this morning in municipal court.

The girl, a Columbus middle-school student, was approached by a man about 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, as she waited alone for her school bus near the corner of Dresden Street and Myrtle Avenue.

She told police that the man a stranger to her struck up a conversation and then forced her behind the nearby vacant house at 1452 Myrtle Ave.

Fillmore, who is 5-foot-8 and 255 pounds, hit the girl in her face and grabbed her by her mouth while he raped her, court documents say.

The key to breaking the case was DNA evidence from the crime scene that was tested by the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The DNA matched a sample taken from Fillmore, Columbus police said.

All people convicted of felonies, and anyone arrested on a felony in Ohio since 2011, are required to have their DNA entered in a state database, said Dan Tierney, a spokesman with the state attorney generals office.

Tierney said that when a case is considered to be urgent, the state bureau will expedite the DNA analysis.

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DNA leads police to suspect in schoolgirls rape