LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Testing of a backlogged rape kit led to an arrest in a 2011 sexual assault in Hardin County.
Thaddeus Artis was indicted Thursday by a grand jury in Hardin County on multiple felonies, including first-degree rape and sodomy. The 37-year-old is already in custody at the Marion County Detention Center on unrelated charges.
"His DNA was connected to a backlog case," Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear said Thursday.
Artis will be arraigned in Hardin County on April 23. His bond has been set at $100,000.
Elizabethtown Police turned over the cold case to the Kentucky attorney general's office in September 2018. DNA from the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence, or SAFE, kit was tested through the Kentucky State Police crime lab and came up with a hit on Artis.
"Our office began investigating the 2011 sexual assault after the Elizabethtown Police Department turned it over to use as a cold case," Beshear said. "The victim sexual assault kit was unmatched. The case had gone cold."
The attorney general’s SAKI Cold Case Unit formed in 2017 with a $3 million grant from the U.S Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance.
"We are now working to support the victim who has waiting almost a decade for this justice," Beshear said. "This cold case united has worked with law enforcement all across Kentucky."
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