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Murder defendant gets rape charge
Murder defendant gets rape charge
A man scheduled to go to trial on murder charges later this month now also faces separate charges of rape and sodomy allegedly committed 10 years ago.
Lexington police charged Ondra L. Clay, 35, with attacking a woman early on July 24, 1997. The woman was walking to work on North Limestone when she was grabbed, threatened, raped and forced to give her attacker oral sex, court records say.
The Kentucky State Police Crime Lab matched DNA collected after the attack to Clay last year, according to court records.
The investigation was aided by a state grant that has recently helped solve several other cold cases in Lexington, said Police Sgt. Paul Williams.
Clay already is awaiting trial on charges that he strangled and sodomized another woman, Ebony P. Smith, 20, on May 7, 2005. That trial is scheduled to begin March 26.
Clay has been accused of rape before. In 1996, a grand jury declined to indict Clay on rape and wanton endangerment charges.
In 2004, a Fayette County jury acquitted him of rape, sodomy and terroristic threatening charges.
Murder defendant gets rape charge
A man scheduled to go to trial on murder charges later this month now also faces separate charges of rape and sodomy allegedly committed 10 years ago.
Lexington police charged Ondra L. Clay, 35, with attacking a woman early on July 24, 1997. The woman was walking to work on North Limestone when she was grabbed, threatened, raped and forced to give her attacker oral sex, court records say.
The Kentucky State Police Crime Lab matched DNA collected after the attack to Clay last year, according to court records.
The investigation was aided by a state grant that has recently helped solve several other cold cases in Lexington, said Police Sgt. Paul Williams.
Clay already is awaiting trial on charges that he strangled and sodomized another woman, Ebony P. Smith, 20, on May 7, 2005. That trial is scheduled to begin March 26.
Clay has been accused of rape before. In 1996, a grand jury declined to indict Clay on rape and wanton endangerment charges.
In 2004, a Fayette County jury acquitted him of rape, sodomy and terroristic threatening charges.
