ORLANDO, Fla. – Nearly 35 years after a woman was raped near Orlando's Fashion Square Mall, DNA evidence has led Orlando police detectives to her suspected attacker, newly released court records show.
Lesie Lovan Hammock, 58, was taken into custody on a warrant issued Oct. 9 by an Orange County Circuit Court judge. He's accused of sexual battery with a deadly weapon.
The alleged victim was riding her bicycle on East Colonial Drive in November 1983 when another cyclist crashed into her, according to an affidavit police used to obtain the arrest warrant.
After a brief verbal interaction, the woman told police the man grabbed her from behind and held a knife to her throat.
According to the report, the man forced the woman to an area near a now-closed air conditioner business, pushed her to the ground and raped her.
After the attack, the suspect took the victim's pants and purse and fled west on Colonial Drive, records show.
For more than 30 years, the crime remained unsolved.
In late 2015, following a statewide push to process a backlog of untested rape kits, Orlando police submitted DNA evidence from the 1983 case to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement crime lab.
Nearly two years later, the state agency matched the DNA profile to Hammock, court records indicate.
Hammock was released from state prison in September 2016 after serving six years for a similar attack that occurred in Bradenton.
According to an arrest affidavit in that 2010 case, Hammock allegedly dragged a woman into a wooded area and started removing her clothes while holding a knife to her throat. After fighting off Hammock, the report states, the victim escaped with only a minor wound.
Before seeking a warrant for Hammock's arrest in the 1983 rape case, Orlando Police wanted to locate the alleged victim.
The original detective who investigated the attack lost contact with the woman when she moved from her home without leaving a forwarding address, reports show.
Last month, Orlando police investigators located the woman in Missouri.
During an interview with a Missouri police detective, the woman provided a description of the 1983 attack that was consistent with her original report, court records show. She also said a photograph of Hammock "looked like the person" who attacked her.
At the time of his arrest earlier this month, Hammock was living in Green Cove Springs, a Clay County community located south of Jacksonville.
Besides the 1983 sexual battery case, Orlando police said Hammock is a person of interest in another sex crime that occurred around that same time period.