LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — A judge denied bail for 46-year-old Larry Tucker Jr., who investigators say broke into a woman’s home in Tavares in 2007, tied her up and sexually assaulted her for nearly two hours.
For years, detectives had DNA from the scene but no match in national databases like CODIS, the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System.
“It’s always an exciting time to be able to bring, especially our older cases, to some form of resolution,” said Cpl. Zachary Williams with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, who helped reopen the case.
That resolution came after the sheriff’s office teamed up with Parabon NanoLabs, a private company specializing in forensic genetic genealogy. Investigators uploaded the unknown DNA to public databases, including GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA, which helped identify distant relatives of the suspect.
“We took the unknown sample from the crime scene and uploaded it to the databases we can use for investigative genetic genealogy and repopulated a list of cousins or relatives,” said Misty Gillis, an investigative genetic genealogist with Parabon.
From there, researchers built a family tree that eventually pointed to Tucker, who was living in Tiffin, Ohio. Detectives traveled there earlier this month to arrest him. He was extradited back to Florida, where he now faces multiple charges, including sexual battery and kidnapping.
Investigators say the victim’s reaction to the news of the arrest was powerful.
“Her first reaction was she took this really big, deep breath,” Williams said. “She looked at us and said that was the first time in 18 years that she’d been able to really take a full, deep breath.”
Tucker is being held at the Lake County jail without bail and is expected to be arraigned on Nov. 17.
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