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A Highland man on trial for a pair of rapes that occurred in south Orange County more than two decades ago denies he was responsible for the assaults, with his attorney telling jurors on Wednesday, Jan. 25, that they were actually carried out by his client’s twin brother.
[IMG alt="Kevin Konther, of Highland. (Courtesy of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department)
"]https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/0112_NWS_OCR-L-COLDC-16x9-1.jpg?w=562[/IMG]
Kevin Konther, now 57, was arrested in 2019 after authorities say his DNA was tied to the 1995 rape of a 9-year-old girl in Lake Forest and the 1998 rape of a 32-year-old woman runner in Mission Viejo. Authorities have acknowledged that the DNA allegedly matched his twin brother as well, but they said further investigation led them to identify Kevin Konther as the suspect.
Konther is also accused of lewd acts with a girlfriend’s daughter when she was 8 or 9 years old at the couple’s homes in Huntington Beach and Highland.
During openings statements on Wednesday in a Santa Ana courtroom, Deputy District Attorney Juliet Oliver told an Orange County Superior Court jury that in surreptitiously recorded conversations between the brothers in police vehicles and at the Huntington Beach jail Kevin Konther, after both were arrested, expressed no shock at his arrest, while his brother was upset and angry.
www.mercurynews.com
original article:
California police use genealogy websites to arrest suspect in 1990s rapes
A California man has been arrested in connection to rapes committed in the 1990s after his DNA was linked to the crime scenes through commercial genealogy websites, which initially turned up both the suspect and his twin, police said on Friday.
Kevin Konther, 53, was taken into custody on Thursday at his home in Southern California and booked on suspicion of rape, kidnapping and child sexual abuse, Orange County Sheriff's spokeswoman Carrie Braun said. One of the victims was nine years old at the time of the attack.
Konther was identified as a suspect by sheriff's detectives using techniques similar to those used in recent years to help solve a number of older crimes. Last year, a 73-year-old former police officer was arrested over the 'Golden State Killer' string of murders and rapes across California in the 1970s and 1980s.
In investigating the 1990s rapes, which were committed in Orange County, investigators working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation compared DNA samples collected at two crime scenes to that found on the websites used by consumers to trace their ancestry, Braun said.
Detectives use the sites to follow the family trees of matches, seeking blood relatives who roughly fit the profile of the suspected criminal.
Both Konther and his twin brother were taken into custody on Thursday before investigators identified Konther as the suspect and released his brother, who has not been publicly identified, Braun said. She declined to name the website used or the family member whose DNA led to the suspect.
Konther was being held in lieu of $1 million bail pending an initial court appearance scheduled for Monday, where he will be arraigned on two counts of felony rape, oral copulation on a child under the age of 14, lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and aggravated sexual assault.
www.reuters.com
[IMG alt="Kevin Konther, of Highland. (Courtesy of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department)
"]https://www.mercurynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/0112_NWS_OCR-L-COLDC-16x9-1.jpg?w=562[/IMG]
Kevin Konther, now 57, was arrested in 2019 after authorities say his DNA was tied to the 1995 rape of a 9-year-old girl in Lake Forest and the 1998 rape of a 32-year-old woman runner in Mission Viejo. Authorities have acknowledged that the DNA allegedly matched his twin brother as well, but they said further investigation led them to identify Kevin Konther as the suspect.
Konther is also accused of lewd acts with a girlfriend’s daughter when she was 8 or 9 years old at the couple’s homes in Huntington Beach and Highland.
During openings statements on Wednesday in a Santa Ana courtroom, Deputy District Attorney Juliet Oliver told an Orange County Superior Court jury that in surreptitiously recorded conversations between the brothers in police vehicles and at the Huntington Beach jail Kevin Konther, after both were arrested, expressed no shock at his arrest, while his brother was upset and angry.
Attorney for man on trial for California cold-case rapes alleges client’s twin is guilty
Kevin Konther, now 57, was arrested in 2019 after authorities say his DNA was tied to the 1995 rape of a 9-year-old girl in Lake Forest and the 1998 rape of a 32-year-old woman jogger in Mission Vi…
www.mercurynews.com
original article:
California police use genealogy websites to arrest suspect in 1990s rapes
A California man has been arrested in connection to rapes committed in the 1990s after his DNA was linked to the crime scenes through commercial genealogy websites, which initially turned up both the suspect and his twin, police said on Friday.
Kevin Konther, 53, was taken into custody on Thursday at his home in Southern California and booked on suspicion of rape, kidnapping and child sexual abuse, Orange County Sheriff's spokeswoman Carrie Braun said. One of the victims was nine years old at the time of the attack.
Konther was identified as a suspect by sheriff's detectives using techniques similar to those used in recent years to help solve a number of older crimes. Last year, a 73-year-old former police officer was arrested over the 'Golden State Killer' string of murders and rapes across California in the 1970s and 1980s.
In investigating the 1990s rapes, which were committed in Orange County, investigators working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation compared DNA samples collected at two crime scenes to that found on the websites used by consumers to trace their ancestry, Braun said.
Detectives use the sites to follow the family trees of matches, seeking blood relatives who roughly fit the profile of the suspected criminal.
Both Konther and his twin brother were taken into custody on Thursday before investigators identified Konther as the suspect and released his brother, who has not been publicly identified, Braun said. She declined to name the website used or the family member whose DNA led to the suspect.
Konther was being held in lieu of $1 million bail pending an initial court appearance scheduled for Monday, where he will be arraigned on two counts of felony rape, oral copulation on a child under the age of 14, lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and aggravated sexual assault.
California police use genealogy websites to arrest suspect in 1990s rapes
A California man has been arrested in connection to rapes committed in the 1990s after his DNA was linked to the crime scenes through commercial genealogy websites, which initially turned up the both the suspect and his twin, police said on Friday.
www.reuters.com
