DNA points to suspect years after rape outside Eagles game
In 2008, a woman, 40, was raped in a bus outside an Eagles game. Police recovered DNA evidence and publicized a composite sketch of the suspect, but after several years, the investigative trail had gone cold.
In 2008, a woman, 40, was raped in a bus outside an Eagles game. Police recovered DNA evidence and publicized a composite sketch of the suspect, but after several years, the investigative trail had gone cold.
The investigation sprang back to life in September, when a "hit" in a DNA database pointed to Tiaghgee Daughtry, 22, who was serving jail time in Wyoming County for drug dealing.
After additional investigation, Daughtry was arrested Wednesday by Philadelphia police and is now charged with rape and related offenses.
Daughtry is a native of Wyoming County, which is northwest of Scranton, and had come to Philadelphia and found a job as a parking-lot attendant, Capt. John Darby of the Special Victims Unit said Thursday.
After the rape, Darby said, Daughtry fled Philadelphia, leaving investigators with the DNA evidence and a sketch that was "very generic in appearance."
Identifying a suspect among the tens of thousands of people who attended or worked the Eagles game Oct. 5, 2008, was like trying to find "a needle in a haystack," Darby said.
The DNA evidence was submitted to local, state, and national databases, which are constantly searched for matches, said Michael P. Garvey Jr., director of the police Forensic Science Bureau.
Once Daughtry landed in jail for drug dealing, he was required to submit a DNA sample. It was only a matter of time before his name would surface in connection with the 2008 assault, investigators said.
That day, the victim and some friends were tailgating with a party bus in the 700 block of Pattison Avenue. At halftime, the woman left the game to sleep in the bus, but could not find it.
She sought help from someone who appeared to be an event staffer, Darby said. The man helped her find the bus and got inside with her and left when she fell asleep. He later returned, police said, and raped her.
"We have a victim we can go to years later and say, 'We have your offender,' " Darby said.
