DNA convicts Mo. man of rape 10 years after attack

The Associated Press State & Local Wire

Kansas City, MO

A Kansas City man has been convicted of raping an 81-year-old woman a decade ago in a case that prompted the Missouri Legislature to change state law to remove the statute of limitations on some violent sex crimes.

Terry U. Birmingham, 43, was found guilty Thursday of forcible rape, assault and burglary in the Christmas Eve 1999 rape of Carol Cooper, who hasn't been seen since 2004.

Cooper told police that her attacker followed her into her home after she returned from taking Christmas cookies to a neighbor. The stranger then beat and raped her before fleeing.

With the end of the three-year statute of limitations looming, prosecutors in 2002 filed rape charges against an unknown "John Doe," identified only with the DNA profile developed from evidence at the crime scene.

Birmingham has not been connected with the disappearance of Cooper, who left her home for a walk in 2004 and never returned.

With no victim to testify against Birmingham, the prosecution's case relied heavily on DNA evidence.

Birmingham was charged in 2007 in the case after a DNA sample he gave while being booked into prison for burglary and resisting arrest convictions matched evidence from Cooper's rape.

Birmingham's attorney, Bert Godding, questioned whether DNA samples collected more than 10 years ago had been handled properly or had been contaminated. He asked jurors to refrain from convicting Birmingham without knowing more about Cooper.

"We never met her," Godding said. "She never came in and said, 'This was the man.' All you heard was her hearsay, what she said a decade ago."

Jurors in the three-day trial acquitted Birmingham of robbery and an additional rape charge.

It was the first case in which Jackson County prosecutors used the John Doe technique to charge a DNA profile.

The office has filed more than a dozen such cases since then.

Soon after the county filed its John Doe case in 2002, the Legislature passed a law exempting forcible rape and sodomy from the statute of limitations.

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