Calhoun County rape, kidnapping suspect charged in 2013 Talladega case
An Anniston man charged with four felonies in connection with a July 4 attack in Calhoun County faces similar charges in a 2013 Talladega County crime, according to Talladega County Sheriff Jimmy Kilgore.
Kilgore announced the charges on Wednesday; Thursday marks nine years since that July 28, 2013, attack.
The sheriff said DNA collected after a 67-year-old Munford woman was sexually assaulted when a man forced his way into her home is a preliminary match to that of Tony Lamar White, 47.
White was arrested in Kentucky the day after Calhoun County law enforcement officers rescued a 75-year-old woman kidnapped from her home.
He faces charges in Talladega County for first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy and first-degree burglary, along with the first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, first-degree kidnapping and first-degree burglary charges brought in the July 4 case.
The circumstances of the July 4 assault nearly mirrored those of two prior attacks — a July 2012 rape in Alexandria and the 2013 attack in Munford — except for the most recent victim being taken away from her home.
In each case, the assailant is believed to have followed the victims to their homes and assaulted them.
Kilgore said in the Munford case, the woman told investigators her attacker knocked on her door, telling her he was selling books. When she declined, he forced his way inside and attacked her.
The sheriff said investigators collected DNA evidence and preserved it, hoping for a CODIS hit that would lead them to a suspect.
The DNA from the Munford case matched that from 2012 Calhoun County case. The victim in that case was an 82-year-old woman; she died in 2017. No charges have been brought in that case at this point.
Kilgore said those in law enforcement see things the average person doesn't see. "This is one of those you wish you hadn't seen," he said.
That no arrest was made for so long "kind of stuck in our craw," he said. "This was a heinous crime."
Kilgore credited Calhoun County Sheriff Matthew Wade and his office's investigators for their work in the July 4 case. It came to them as a missing person report and they quickly realized the scene indicated a kidnapping. Examining security cameras in the area where the victim had been shopping, they identified a vehicle that seemed to follow her from store to store.
Tracing the vehicle led them to a suspect, and when they went to that suspect's home on Wilmer Street in Anniston, they found the victim, bound in a closet.
"They saved that woman's life," Kilgore said.
White was arrested the next day in Kentucky and returned to Alabama. From his DNA, there was a CODIS hit linking it to the other cases.
White is being held without bond on the Talladega charges. After he was brought to Talladega for arraignment Wednesday, he was returned to the Calhoun County Jail, where he is being held on bonds totaling $4 million.
Contact Gadsden Times reporter Donna Thornton at 256-393-3284 or donna.thornton@gadsdentimes.com.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Calhoun County rape suspect charged in 2013 Talladega cold case
