A North Carolina man who pleaded guilty on Monday to raping a woman in Fayetteville 31 years ago was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
Fayetteville police said in 2020 that they suspected three individuals were involved in the rape of a woman, which occurred in 1992 near a cemetery building on Ramsey Street.
The victim had been cleaning offices nearby, and when she walked out to her car, she was knocked out, transported to another location and raped.
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The hood of the woman’s car was spray-painted with "3 Horsemen," and the vehicle, with her inside, was discarded in a pond, though she lived and spent the following years searching for justice.
State Attorney General Josh Stein’s office said in a press release that in 2006, the Fayetteville Police Department submitted a sexual kit from the woman’s case to the North Carolina State Crime Lab.
Since the crime happened, several advancements in DNA technology have allowed for better testing.
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After undergoing more advanced testing, the crime lab identified a DNA sample that was uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS.
The department received funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s FY2015 National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative Grant and reopened the case in 2015.
Efforts into solving the case resumed, though they went cold again.
But in October 2020, the department received a notification from the state crime lab that it matched DNA with the DNA of Roy Junior Proctor, who was 46 at the time.
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In November 2020, the Fayetteville Police Department’s Cold Case Unit announced it had made an arrest in connection to the 1992.
Police arrested Roy Junior Proctor in November 2020 and charged him with first-degree attempted murder, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree rape, first-degree sex offense and felonious larceny.
Proctor pleaded guilty on Monday, according to the Fayetteville Police Department, and received two 40-year sentences that will run concurrently for second-degree rape, second-degree sex offense, second-degree kidnapping, common law robbery and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill.
"The justice delivered this week has been 31 years in the making," Stein said. "This case is a reminder that no matter how long it takes, we must put the full force of science and the law behind getting offenders off our streets and getting justice for victims and survivors of sexual assault. We will never give up on their cases."
