Rape suspect’s DNA proves elusive

Man in Pillowcase Rape investigation was criminal in ’90s, but sample never taken

The case of the notorious Pillowcase Rapist could have been solved decades ago if only authorities had collected their suspect’s DNA when the law instructed them to.

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, legislation to create a statewide database of DNA was first passed in 1989.

By Jan. 1, 1990, a database was set up and police agencies were instructed to collect DNA samples from offenders convicted of sexual assaults, lewdness and indecent acts. That would have included Robert Eugene Koehler.

Koehler was arrested by the Palm Beach Police Department in October 1990 after a woman was raped in her apartment. The account of the rape resembled accounts of women who reported being raped by the Pillowcase Rapist in Miami and Broward years earlier, but they were never linked.

Koehler pleaded guilty to sexual battery in February 1991.

According to court records, he was ordered to pay more than $6,000 in fines, sentenced to community control supervision and surcommunity

veillance for 18 months as well as another seven years of probation.

However, his DNA was never once collected, nor was a requirement for it to be collected listed as one of the many conditions of his control terms, according to court records.

Based on Florida law, Koehler’s blood sample should have been collected and entered in the burgeoning statewide registry at some point during the process of his conviction and release.

Instead, he became a free

man after 1991 and continued to evade authorities for nearly 30 years, keeping cold the 25 rape cases his DNA was recently linked to by the Miami State Attorney’s Office.

During a news conference Jan. 23 announcing the break in these cases, Miami State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Koehler’s DNA was never collected after his 1990 arrest because the practice was not mandatory then.

The FDLE’s statements run against that narrative. They also suggest that obtaining Koehler’s DNA was always the responsibility of the various authorities who have dealt with him since his 1991 conviction, short jail stint, years of community control and probation.

Jeremy Burns, a spokesman for the FDLE, said the agency can’t speak to any particular offender’s DNA that is not in the database when it should be.

“Local agencies, probation officers and county jails are usually the ones who collect the DNA,” he said. “We provide the kits and teach them how to use them, but we aren’t the ones collecting.”

A spokeswoman for the Palm Beach Sheriff ’s Office, which oversees the jail, said the responsibility of taking Koehler’s DNA would not have fallen on her agency because they did not arrest Koehler in 1990.

A spokeswoman for the Palm Beach Police Department did not respond to email and voicemail requests for comment.

‘I expect better of law enforcement’

The revelation that Koehler could have been caught as early as 1991 struck Rockne Harmon, a former prosecutor in California who helped the state implement its own DNA collection policies, as a huge oversight on the part of local authorities.

“I see things aren’t right here and I expect better of law enforcement,” Harmon said.

Harmon said it is possible that Koehler’s DNA was never taken because his arrest and conviction happened soon after Florida’s database law was passed. He added that Florida’s law was only two years removed from the first time DNA was ever used to convict someone in a United States courtroom.

That happened in November 1987 in Central Florida, when Tommie Lee Andrews — a serial rapist who operated in the same manner as Koehler is alleged to have — was convicted of rape and sentenced to over 20 years in prison.

After Andrews’ conviction, Harmon said states across the country began to take a closer look at DNA evidence, which he said immediately surpassed the accuracy of other investigative tools such as fingerprint analysis.

“The cat was out of the bag, and we were all trying to figure out how to make it work better,” he said.

Virginia, California and Florida became the first states to institute a statewide collection database of DNA samples. But because those states were early to the game and did not have any comparable federal database until 1994, Harmon said they often had to figure out how to go about their collection on their own.

In California, Harmon said there wasn’t much money for DNA collection after the law establishing a database was passed in 1989. He recalled many agencies sent in samples that were kept in a freezer until a more sophisticated process was put into place.

Although Harmon said he can imagine Florida may have been in the same spot, he believes that failing to get Koehler’s DNA in 1991 does not absolve law enforcement officials of their responsibility.

He argued that at any point in the nearly 30 years after Koehler’s release from prison — which included stints of community control and probation, as well as constant monitoring as a result of his sex-offender status — there were opportunities to lawfully gather his DNA over the years.

“There is absolutely no question that this guy owed a sample,” Harmon said.

Burns, of the FDLE, said it was not clear whether there was a statute of limitations barring authorities from compelling DNA from a convicted offender who should have turned it in years before.

“FDLE can’t offer legal interpretations,” he said.

A missed opportunity?

Months before Koehler’s dramatic arrest in January, Brevard County authorities were notified by the FDLE that he was one of 32 registered sex offenders in the county who did not have a DNA sample in the statewide database.

In July, Brevard County sheriff’s deputies asked Koehler for a voluntary sample of his DNA to enter into the database, according to Tod Goodyear, a spokesman for the Brevard County Sheriff ’s Office.

Koehler said no. So did the majority of the offenders officers asked.

“I would have said no too,” Goodyear said.

Goodyear said his deputies were told by the FDLE that they did not have the authority to compel offenders to give their DNA to the agency.

Burns said the request for DNA was the result of an initiative begun in 2019 by the FDLE to obtain DNA from about 850 registered sex offenders who have been arrested and convicted in Florida, and who still live in the state but do not have a DNA sample in the statewide registry.

Burns said he could not speak specifically to why these offenders’ DNA was not in the database.

When asked about the 1989 Florida statute that enacted DNA collection in Florida as well as the collection that began in 1990, Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the Miami State Attorney’s Office, stood by the assertion that Koehler evaded authorities for so long because collecting his DNA was not mandatory while in the clutches of Palm Beach law enforcement.

Griffith said that, logically, if Brevard County sheriff ’s deputies had to ask Koehler for his DNA in July, it would confirm he was not required to submit his DNA in 1991.

“Otherwise the police would not have been asking for a contribution, but telling him to supply a sample,” Griffith said.

But Goodyear said Brevard deputies would not have necessarily been aware that Koehler’s DNA was not taken when it should have been back in 1991.

Goodyear said the deputies who went to see Koehler that day in July generally focus on making sure sexual offenders are properly registered in the county and have an updated address and vehicle registration on file.

Statutory requirements are not something those deputies would normally look into, he said. “They are too busy doing the other stuff.”

Goodyear said state laws vary depending on different offenders, but generally they require a sex offender to go their local sheriff ’s office and check in with them twice a year. He said the registration forms filled out for sex offenders and sent to the FDLE do not state if they have a DNA sample on file.

Goodyear said noticing Koehler had never had his DNA submitted when he was supposed to and following up on it would be something that would require a court order and would likely originate from Palm Beach, where Koehler was arrested and convicted on the sexual assault charge.

“I don’t know how we would be able to arbitrarily go out and get it from him,” Goodyear said.

While various authorities seemed to point the finger at each other as to who may have been responsible to collect Koehler’s DNA and when, Harmon said it was clear there should be an accounting among law enforcement as to how Koehler’s DNA was elusive for so long.

Harmon said instead of only carrying out Koehler’s arrest, law enforcement also should consider how he slipped through the cracks and how others might do the same.

“And if they did it to him, how many other people are in that category?” said Harmon, who is currently a consultant to numerous law enforcement agencies dealing with cold-case investigation and forensic DNA.

According to Burns, the FDLE’s current initiative to gather missing DNA from sex offenders is “active and ongoing.” So far, DNA has been obtained from more than 400 sex offenders of the 850 they identified.