Baltimore City police on Wednesday charged a 38-year-old registered sexually violent offender in a cold-case rape and murder — a year after they got a DNA match.
Police have charged Rodney Joseph, of the 400 block of Oak Street, and charged him with the Feb. 12, 2000, killing of Chontrell Sample, 19, on the 2300 block of Round Road in Brooklyn.
Inside the apartment, police found Sample partially clothed, with her hands tied behind her back, on the floor between the wall and the mattress, according to a police report.
The state’s medical examiner ruled she had been strangled.
On Feb. 23, 2007, Maryland State Police notified the city police department that swabs taken from the crime scene matched Joseph, who is registered with the state’s database as a sexually violent offender.
Baltimore police said Thursday that they were checking to determine why it took officers more than a year after receiving the DNA match to charge Joseph in the crime.
In 2004, Joseph received a 20-year sentence, with all but five years suspended, for the second-degree rape of his mentally challenged sister, prosecutors said.
After his release from prison, he failed to register a change of address and, on Monday, was sentenced to 15 years in prison — the remainder of his sentence from the second-degree rape.
