Twenty-six years after a woman was attacked and raped by a home intruder, detectives in the Fayetteville Police Department’s Special Victims Unit have put the perpetrator behind bars.
“Our survivor has had to live a life for 26 years of not knowing who her offender was,” Jessica Lewis, the lead detective in the case, said Wednesday. “For the survivors who are still out there waiting, the survivor in this case wants you to know there is still hope.”
On Sept. 13, Lenford Demorius Moore, 55, was arrested and charged with first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping, and felony breaking and entering in the October 1997 incident, police officials said at a news conference Wednesday. Following his first court appearance on Sept. 14, Moore is being held at the Cumberland County Detention Center under a $350,000 secured bond.
Moore, of Fayetteville, was arrested in Hope Mills by members of the Fayetteville Police Department’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Team and Hope Mills Police Department, according to the initial news release.
Detectives credited their success to recent advances in forensic technology, grant funding that allowed for extensive genetic testing, cross-disciplinary involvement and the survivor’s persistence in seeking justice.
“The case was investigated, many follow-up investigations were done, and a lot of laboratory work was conducted,” Lewis said. “But due to the limitations, her case was cold.”
After the survivor contacted police in 2016 to ask if investigators could continue working on the case, advanced technology was used to solve the case.
Ze Surratt II, deputy director of The Phoenix Center, a rape crisis center in Fayetteville, was at Wednesday’s news conference to represent the surviver. She said it means a great deal to the survivor to have the right suspect apprehended after years of uncertainty.
“When a victim is given that information, it’s almost like a floodgate opening because they’re going through a period of time which can be years of basically looking over their shoulder, wondering if that person is still around, knows where they are, what they’re doing,” Surratt said. “To actually have that person identified is beyond relief.”
Police Chief Kemberle Braden said there are still hundreds of cold cases like this one in his department and detectives move swiftly to assess available evidence as it arises.
“We go once a month and take any kit that is available to us that may be of evidentiary value to the lab,” Braden said. “As far as I know, we are up to date on all of our kits being submitted to the lab for those analyses.”
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
