Man charged with '95 Duke Forest rape

More than three years after a sexual assault in Duke Forest sent shockwaves across campus, a Mebane, N.C., resident has been charged with the crime.

Already serving time for an attempted rape in Cary, Robert Warren Pratt, 27, was indicted Monday on one charge of first-degree rape, three charges of first-degree kidnapping and two charges of first-degree sex offense.

He is thought responsible for a Sept. 13, 1995, incident near Duke Forest's Gate 26 in which three Duke employees-two men and one woman-were robbed and then bound and gagged with duct tape. The assailant then raped the woman and fled the scene.

Fingerprints on file at the State Bureau of Investigations linked Pratt with the crimes, said Maj. Robert Dean of the Duke University Police Department. Orange-Chatham District Attorney Carl Fox said that additional forensic evidence is being examined but will take longer to analyze.

The victims of the 1995 Duke Forest attack have not been asked to identify Pratt, Fax added. The victims had been notified that a suspect was under investigation and that charges were pending.

This arrest is not the first time the SBI's files have played a central role in this case.

Donald Clarke-Pearson, a then-19 year-old Medical Center employee and son of a medical school professor, was originally accused of the crimes because he was spotted leaving the woods shortly after the rape. Although the true assailant had worn a disguise-a brown dreadlock wig, a reddish-brown beard and blue oval sunglasses-one victim positively identified Clarke-Pearson as the assailant.

The charges were dropped after a month, however, after DNA tests revealed that his body fluid samples did not match those taken from the rape victim.

Now, years later, the preserved evidence seems to point to Pratt, Dean said.

After the charges were dropped, Dean said that investigators kept their eyes peeled for any similar cases. "With cases like this, we never close them," he said. "They become inactive if we don't have any leads to follow, but any time a new lead comes up, we review the case."

Pratt is currently serving time for the Sept. 3 robbery and attempted rape of a Cary real estate agent. Armed with a handgun, he stole the sales associate's watch and attempted to rape her.

He plead guilty in the Cary assault and was sentenced to between 141 and 168 months in prison.

Campus Police noticed similarities between the two cases and decided to follow the lead, said Dean, who declined to comment on specifics.

Pratt is also facing charges for the attempted rape of a Durham real estate agent and awaiting sentencing following a December guilty plea for an April 1997 stabbing.

In this latter incident, Pratt was accused of stabbing a University of North Carolina lacrosse player who came to the defense of a woman Pratt was apparently harassing at Players, the Chapel Hill hot spot. The victim's wounds required surgery and 72 internal and external staples.

Dean added that he was "pretty sure" law enforcement agencies are checking to see if Pratt could be linked to other unsolved crimes.

The only unsolved rape in the immediate area occurred in Duke Forest before 1995, Fox said. In that crime, the assailant also wore a disguise. "But I don't know if there is any evidence that can link him or anybody to that crime," Fox said.

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