Cold Case Files - Caught on Tape

Episode Date: February 22, 2022

A serial rapist is terrorizing Louisville, Kentucky, and despite his tell-tale MO - it will take investigators seven years to bring the perpetrator to justice. Check out our great sponsors! ExpressVPN: Go to ExpressVPN.com/coldcase to get three extra months free! Sundance: Try Sundance Now FREE for 30 days! Go to SundanceNow.com and use code COLDCASE Progressive: Take one small step to help your budget. Get a quote today at Progressive.com  Download June’s Journey free today on the Apple App Store or Google Play!

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. If you've listened to this podcast before, you'll know that I have my doubts about criminal profiling. It can be a useful investigative tool, but I don't think that profiling alone can solve a case. That's because there isn't any single indicator that can predict whether or not someone will display criminal behaviors. It's not black and white. However, once a crime has been committed, there are some pretty standard MOs when it comes to repeat offenders. One of which is that perpetrators often return to the scene of the crime to relive whatever satisfaction they find in the crimes they committed. Sometimes they return for other reasons too, like when a location feels like

an easy target, especially when they've successfully committed a crime in the area before. That's exactly what happened in Louisville, Kentucky in 1998. Someone was terrorizing Crafty Drive, committing multiple rapes on the same street within just a few days. But despite the clear pattern of behavior, it would take another seven years to bring the serial rapist to justice. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files.

I'm Brooke, and here's the astounding Bill Curtis with a classic case caught on tape. The knife was to my throat, and he started saying, do not say anything, don't say a word. It's just after 3 a.m. when 29-year-old Shannon Johnson wakes to a stranger in her bed. He tried to get between my legs, and I'm thinking, okay, if I let him go through with this and he kills me, what's he going to do to my daughter? So it was just like a snap instance to grab the knife. And I grabbed it with this hand by the blade. And then we started fighting. We struggled for a minute, maybe even less than a minute.

He stops, he pulls up his pants, and he takes off running out the door. Johnson dials 911. The scene is all too familiar for police. Twelve days earlier, a woman in the same apartment complex on Crafty Drive was attacked. I knew he was African American. I knew that he had close cut hair. I knew that he was taller than me. Johnson's attacker matches a description given in the earlier assault.

Investigators, however, have no suspects and nothing else to move on. Meanwhile, a rapist has his eyes on Crafty Drive, waiting for another woman and another opportunity. He had the knife right at my throat. And I'm trying to do exactly what he says. It's just past 3 a.m. when 56-year-old Terry Poe wakes up to a man on top of her. I don't know if he kneed me

or he hit me in the stomach but he just doubled me up and he said, I'm going to rape you. The man pushes Poe down on the couch and presses the blade to her throat. On the beginning, he was just cut it enough to let you know he would cut you. Just enough that you could feel the blood treatment, you know. He ripped the buttons off my pajamas, you know, he ripped my pajamas off.

And he was on me. I'm trying to do what he said. I knew I couldn't get away. I knew I was pinned. The man rapes Poe repeatedly, slips out the back door, and into the night. I was asked to respond as an evidence technician to a man police are calling the Crafty Drive Rapist. The suspect description also was the same in all of these crimes. The Jefferson County Police certainly felt that they had a serial rapist in this area that was operating.

Carroll dusts for prints and documents the scene. Meanwhile, police circulate sketches and question male residents. Just as quickly as the attack started, however, they abruptly stop. What happened to the perpetrator? Essentially, were they incarcerated somewhere else? Did they move to another state? What caused these attacks to actually cease? It was very frustrating, very, very frustrating, because we felt that we had a serial rapist. A serial rapist who has suddenly gone quiet and will remain that way for months.

This is Preston Highway. This is the 8200 block of Preston Highway. Detective Dwayne Colbank works robbery for the Louisville Metro Police Department. In the fall of 1998, he investigates two BP gas station rapes. He forced both victims to stock rooms, had both victims disrobe, used articles of clothing to wrap around their heads so they couldn't see what was going on. DNA testing confirms the attacks are the work of one man, dubbed by investigators the BP oil rapist.

Coal Bank, however, thinks there could be further connections, that the BP oil rapist might also be good for the rapes on Crafty Drive. We were pretty confident that it was the same individual. Close proximity, I mean, four miles, you really don't have that many serial stranger rapes. And also the physical description, he was described in both incidents as being a young black male in his late teens, early twenties. Colbank tries to forge a link between the two series of attacks, but

hits a dead end. What few leads that we got, they were followed up on and nothing ever came. No good suspects were ever developed. Five assaults find their way into the cold files. Louisville's serial rapist, however,

is not nearly finished. When he came in, he said he wanted to pack his cigarettes. And I was kind of leery. And when I turned around, that's when he jumped the counter on me.

It is just past 2 a.m. on the city's south side, and a store clerk named Kim Adams has a problem. I seen the knife as he was jumping. I just focused on that. I was like, he's got a knife, and this man's really serious. As surveillance cameras roll, the man tells Adams to empty the register. Then the two struggle in the aisles of the convenience store. The man pushes Adams into the parking lot, where she grabs the attacker's knife and bites down on his hand.

As soon as I bit his finger, my body just went like this, and I got to the ground, and I was kicking and screaming. The man flees. Kim Adams survives. The attack is initially seen as an isolated incident. Until that is, Detective Larry Duncan picks up the case and begins to provide some context. And you can easily, visibly see how close these comfort zones are. Duncan believes Adams' attack to be part of a larger pattern, even larger than anyone had previously thought. Seven of the attacks occurred down here right off Preston Highway.

Duncan IDs at least 10 assaults he believes to be the work of one man. Three of the attacks right off Shepherdsville Road, three more of the attacks within a half-mile radius of a center location within the Newburgh community, all of which were in walking distance. In almost all of the cases, the suspect wields a knife. In the later assaults, he had begun to use it. He had gained control of the victims all in a Blitzkrieg- attack. And he would conduct these sexual assaults almost without fail in the same manner. He would tie clothing around their faces almost in the same manner. He would use electrical cords almost without fail. He began to take pleasure it would seem in beating the victims. His level of violence was increasing,

and I was very, very fearful that these cases would turn into murder cases eventually. Detective Duncan, robbery. By the summer of 2002, Detective Duncan has identified a lot of victims, but no solid leads to follow. That is, until the detective takes a phone call from the rapist himself.

The boyfriend of the victim walks up to me and hands me his cell phone and said, he's on the line. And of course I asked who's on the line and he said, the guy that did it. Louisville police were facing an armed serial rapist who had already attacked seven women. But despite a telltale M.O., police didn't have much to go on. Investigators were able to connect the Crafty Drive rapist and the BP Oil rapist and determine that the assaults were all the work of one man. But beyond that, they had no leads and no physical evidence. Investigators were forced to continue combing through the same evidence file and hope that new evidence would come to light. Unfortunately, that new evidence would come in the form of another victim. Now, back to the case.

This is the robbery squad room where we work the robbery cases. The rape cases have been going on for four and a half years, dating back since 1998. Detective Larry Duncan is hunting a sexual sadist. What you see here is an accumulation of a large body of the evidence as a result of those investigations. The man who Duncan suspects has assaulted at least ten women. My thinking was I can solve this case. There's no question in my mind that I can solve it. Confidence aside, Detective Duncan needs a break.

He gets it, unfortunately, in the form of yet another victim. It happened early August 11th. Police say a man pried a window screen open and grabbed a knife in a woman's apartment. There had been a sexual assault at Churchill Park Apartments. Detective Duncan gets called out to the scene. The victim was terrorized by a sexual predator in essentially every manner possible. Early on, Duncan believes the assault to be the work of the suspected serial rapist. About 15 minutes into processing the scene, Duncan's suspicions are confirmed.

The boyfriend of the victim walks up to me and hands me his cell phone and said, he's on the line. And of course I asked, who's on the line? And he said, the guy that did it. After the assault, the rapist stole the victim's cell phone. Now he's using it to confess. He, in graphic terms, described to me what he had done during that last sexual assault. At one stage in it, I asked him, I said, why would you do something like this?

And he said, it's just something that I do. He kept saying, you think you're going to catch me? And I said, yes, I'll probably catch you. And he goes, I don't think so. How are you going to catch me? It made me feel like, quite frankly, a big hungry dog that had just been thrown a piece of red meat. After 13 minutes on the line, the suspect abruptly hangs up. Duncan heads back to the police department, thinking about his conversation with the suspected rapist

and taking with him his best piece of evidence, the suspect's point of entry, a living room screen and window frame. And after dusting it both sides in every area, going over it with a fine-tooth comb, I didn't get any prints. So, in desperation, I looked to who I always look to, and I looked up at the good Lord, and I said, God, please give me a print. I got back down on the hands and knees, and I dusted one more time. And at the first location that I dusted, two of the most beautiful prints that you've ever seen came up. I knew that this was my man's print.

This was the serial rapist's fingerprint. The print is run through APHIS without a match. Detective Duncan, however, is not finished. Along with the cell phone, the serial rapist took his latest victim's ATM card. So he used that card 24 times up and down Bardstown Road here in our city, and we captured a number or a variety of images of him using the card. The perpetrator is about to use the victim's ATM card at a bank

parking lot. As the suspect approaches, one of the identifying characteristics, and let's go over to this monitor, is the footprints on the shirt that he's wearing. And of course, the image of the perpetrator himself, his face, and the visor that he's wearing. We promptly tied her within the apartment and brutally assaulted and raped her. On August 28th, Duncan holds a press conference and asks the public for help. And this would be a copy of the wanted flyer we were releasing to the general public, along with the local media. On Wednesday, police released this bank surveillance tape of a man they suspected was a serial

rapist. Within the hour, these images are plastered on newspapers and TV screens across Louisville. Personally, I was 100% confident that someone would identify him. Because the image was too good, the shirt was too unique for somebody not to recognize him. The next day, an anonymous tipster tells police the man on TV is Daniel Cummings, a local with a history of felony offenses. Although his prints did not hit in APHIS, Cummings' fingerprint card is in the local police files. Examiners compare it to the unknown latent. It was like, Larry, Larry, Larry.

Perfect match. Daniel Gene Cummings. This is the man. And this was followed by a round of applause from the ID lab. You could hear them hooting and hollering. Everybody was ecstatic. After four and a half years, police finally have a name and are ready to make the arrest. The good Lord was letting everything go our way at this point. We were about to nab this person that I believe was responsible for these 14 attacks.

He actually invited us in. He says, yeah, come on in. I've been waiting for you guys to get here. On August 29th, detectives approach room 115 of the Louisville Red Roof Inn. Inside the room is Daniel Cummings, a suspected serial rapist. He said, I know who did it, his name's Fred. Cummings admits he used an ATM card and cell phone from one of the assault victims,

but claims a man named Fred gave him the items and that Fred is the rapist. In a nutshell, his story was that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had happened to be with Fred. Detectives listen but aren't buying Cummings' story. No way. No way.

No way, Jose. He was the man, and I think once we both set eyes on him, we knew he was the person who had done these rapes, and that just by the way he was speaking and the story that he came up with, we knew it was a fairy tale because this was the person. Cummings, however, is adamant that Fred is the rapist, and even offers to show detectives where Fred lives. He took us to where this imaginary person named Fred lived, and we knocked on every single door in that apartment.

Everyone reiterated that there was no one named Fred that lived there. Fred did not exist. He was an imaginary person similar to the person I had when I was a young man, a very little boy. After an hour and a half of searching for the phantom known as Fred, detectives head back downtown. In the backseat of the car, a flesh and blood suspect named Daniel Cummings. I said, you have to make this right. And then he looked at me and said, you can tell that lady she can sleep tonight. I ain't going to get her no more. Speaking is Detective Larry Duncan.

The date is August 29, 2002. Mr. Cummings, would you speak into the microphone, state your complete name, and spell your complete name? Daniel Gene Cummings, would you speak into the microphone, state your complete name, and spell your complete name? Daniel Gene Cummings. In a police interrogation room, Detective Larry Duncan sits across from Daniel Cummings, a man Duncan suspects to be a serial rapist. The detective wastes little time, beginning with the latest assault just 18 days earlier.

You've been identified by your fingerprints that's entering the apartment, okay? So now let's get to some truth, Daniel. I want to ask you about the entire series of rapes. I'm going to ask you to look in your heart right now and do the right thing, okay? I've never done that. Now, I know the difference in that

because I've got your fingerprints in the apartment going into it. I've never raped nobody. Duncan explains to Cummings he isn't suspected in just one assault, but in a series of separate attacks. Cummings feels the pressure and lawyers up. Oh, my heart sunk at that point because I had done everything up to that point to ensure that he wasn't going to initiate his invocation of his rights. With Cummings gone quiet,

Detective Duncan walks out of the room, leaving Detective Brian Arnold alone with the suspect. Daniel's sitting there with his head in his hands, and he looks up to me across the desk and essentially says, hey, can I talk to you? And I said, well, I have to re-advise you for rights. And this is the Super Bowl of investigations. I've got to do a good job here. And I said, you have to make this right. And then he looked to me and said, you can tell that lady she can sleep tonight. I ain't going to get her no more. And at that point, you know, you feel like jumping up and saying, yeah, I got you.

Because I knew I had him by that point. I said, now there's others, aren't there? And that's when he said, there's so many that I can't remember. Over the next two hours, a team of detectives walks Cummings through the assaults. Two on Crampty Drive that we talked about. You meant that you did those, too? Yes, sir. It was very difficult for me

because he was such a despicable character to be gentle like I try to be with most of the questioning so it was a hardcore questioning hard targeting questioning that went on I'm sitting across from a monster. This is an absolute monster who has terrified and ruined people's lives. Assaulted and raped the resident inside both of those apartments. Isn't that true? I think that was a feeling of almost euphoria

going from invoking the rights to now he's talking again. Cummings implicates himself in 11 of the 14 assaults he is suspected of. Subsequent DNA testing bolsters the confession, linking Cummings to five of the attacks. You the right guy? The suspect is cuffed and led to jail, where he will await trial. Do you have anything to say at all? You don't say anything at all?

I haven't said nothing, ever. The case was incredible. From the moment I opened up that file and started reading it, I just knew Larry Duncan had basically tried my case for me already. Kristen Poindexter will prosecute Daniel Cummings. DNA and a partial confession make her job relatively simple. The defendant, I think, realized the volume of evidence against him. And there was really no defense that could possibly be put up.

Do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, so help you God? Yes, ma'am. On the morning of his trial, Cummings pleads guilty to 53 felony counts of rape and robbery. Commonwealth sentences you to 10 years on rape in the first degree. At sentencing, the judge reads each count and the corresponding term of years. Ten years on each of three counts of sodomy in the first degree. Ten years on each of four counts of robbery in the first degree. The process takes three full minutes. Mr. Cummings, you're an extremely dangerous man. You are the serial rapist. And you have

caused an unbelievable and insurmountable amount of pain. Sentences this court just imposed, total of 470 years. You'll be transported by the Department of Corrections to serve your time. In the court that day, many of Cummings' 14 victims, all there to see a chapter in their lives closed. You know, all I could do was cry. You know, that sounds silly and it's a silly reaction, but it's honest. That's all I could do. He broke into our homes in the middle of the night, our safe heaven.

When you go to bed, you should wake up in the morning okay. Not tore up, not beat up, not raped. I thought we would go in and they would just say, 20 years, you're gone. I didn't think I would hear from the other women. And that was the most, I think, striking thing to me, to hear from the other women. When you go to bed and shut your eyes, you should be able to go to sleep.

And that's what Mr. Cummings has taken from me. I can't tell you the elation and the feelings and how good hugging the victims and talking to the victims afterwards felt. Larry Duncan has been a detective for 15 years, knows each of the women Daniel Cummings is convicted of assaulting and especially their pain the only comfort that some of these victims are ever going to get relative to this is knowing that the perpetrator is serving a 470 year sentence in prison it is some comfort for these victims, and I was very blessed to be a part of the case and be able to help these ladies.

In a case like this, it's hard to comprehend the gravity of the damage that was done and how any amount of retribution could make up for the pain endured. I think Detective Duncan understands that when he says that the sentence can only be some comfort to the victims. But I think that the comfort that he's talking about goes beyond the 470-year punishment and the retribution of it all. I think that in so many of these cases, the final lasting comfort is that there will be no more victims.

In Louisville, no more women will be hurt by Daniel Cummings. And that is worth something. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings. Produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis.

Check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at aetv.com slash realcrime.