News

DNA connects man to 20-year-old rape cases

By Anna Brown
Source: Baton Rouge Police Department
Updated: December 16, 2009 5:14 PM

Baton Rouge Police Detectives have arrested a man accused of committing four rapes back in the 1980’s.

Leroy Bickham, 52, was linked through DNA to four rapes that occurred more than 20 years ago. He is accused of raping four victims from July 1985 to August 1987. Bickham was already in jail at Hunt Correctional Center on an unrelated rape conviction from 1992.

Police say Bickham entered the victims’ homes, then threatened, beat and raped them. He was charged with four counts of aggravated rape and returned to Hunt Correctional Center this afternoon.

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    another lifetime at Dec 18th 2009 9:30 AM

    As the survivor of the August 1987 rape, I would like to thank the Baton Rouge Detectives who have stayed on top of this case.  I did not think this rapist would be found, and if he was, I did not think I would learn about it.  

    I received a call from the Detective about 5 years ago with a progress report and another this morning saying the rapist had been arrested in my case based on DNA evidence collected in 1987.  

    Wow.  Not convenient enough to fit into a 40 minute episode of Law and Order or unusual enough to work as an episode of Cold Case, but oddly satisfying to someone on the receiving end of the crime.  My thanks for the concern and persistence of the police officers, detectives, techs and others who do this for us (mostly anonymously).

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