Serial rapist sentenced to life imprisonment in unsolved 2005 case

DALLAS – A 52-year-old man found guilty of aggravated assault will spend the rest of his life in prison in the first jury trial in Dallas County to use investigative genetic genealogy.

The defendant, Christopher Michael Green, was charged with the rape of a young mother at knifepoint in an unsolved 2005 case.

“We have been working with the Dallas Police Department on this case since we launched the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) nearly a decade ago,” said lead prosecutor Leighton D'Antoni in a statement. “I recall Todd Haecker, longtime Dallas Police Department sex offender detective, telling me this was his 'white whale.' We exhausted every investigative avenue to no avail until the District Attorney's Office and Dallas Police Department began working with the FBI's Dallas Violent Crimes Task Force, which finally solved this case.”

During the punishment phase, evidence was presented that Green allegedly committed five additional violent assaults, as well as testimony from survivors – four of whom were between the ages of 15 and 17 at the time of the reported assaults.

“You have chosen your path,” said one of the survivors. “I have waited 24 years for this day.”

Green maintained his innocence and testified so during the trial, but based on DNA evidence and witness testimony, the jury found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.

“Predators cannot live with the truth. Survivors cannot live without it. The truth came out in this courtroom,” D'Antoni said in his closing argument.

A suspicious DNA profile was first identified in one of those cases in 2001, officials say. And over the next 15 years, that profile appeared in five more cases. But because Green was not convicted of a crime, his DNA was not in the national database, so no match could be made.

IGG was the breakthrough, officials say, because it led investigators to connect the DNA profiles of unknown perpetrators with family connections – which led them to Green. Subsequently, four of the six survivors identified Green in a photo lineup. After Green's DNA was obtained through an arrest warrant, it reportedly matched perfectly in all six cases.