Indian Rocks Beach, Fla. — After more than 20 years, a Niles man has been arrested in connection to two Florida sexual assault cases, according to the Pinellas County, Florida Sheriff’s Department.
On Thursday, Dec. 12, Robert Brian Thomas, 61, of Niles, was arrested in connection to two 1998 sexual battery cases, one in Indian Rocks Beach, Florida and one in Venice, Florida. Thomas, who lived in and visited the areas at the time of the crimes, was charged with two counts sexual battery, one count from Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and one count from Venice Police Department.
The original crime occurred at 8:30 p.m. Oct. 8, 1998, when an unknown, naked male suspect approached a female victim. The victim attempted to flee but was caught and overpowered by the suspect, who then threatened her with a weapon. He sexually battered the woman and forced her to perform oral sex on him, before ordering her into the Gulf of Mexico to clean herself before he fled the area.
Detectives collected DNA evidence from the victim after the Sexual Assault Victim Examination was completed. This DNA was provided to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, where a profile of the suspect was created and uploaded into national and state databases. Still, no matches were found at the time.
In May 1999, FDLE matched the DNA submitted from the sexual battery in Pinellas County with a sexual battery in Venice, Florida, which also occurred in 1998.
It would be more than 20 years until detectives in both Pinellas County and Venice would reach a break in the case, despite interviewing more than 90 suspects. In July 2017, the case would be assigned to the cold case homicide unit, but no DNA matches were found in either case.
The first break in the case came in December 2018, when the cold case was accepted into a new Florida Department of Law Enforcement genetic genealogy program that allowed detectives map genealogy by working backward from an identified family toward an unknown suspect.
In March 2019, detectives received a match of a distant relative and continued to interview members in the family tree for information. The FDLE Genetic Genealogy Team was able to narrow the search to one genetic line in the family, which included five possible suspects. Eventually, in early December, detectives matched the DNA sample to Thomas, who was living in Niles. On Dec. 10, DNA analysis confirmed that Thomas’ DNA was a match to the DNA obtained from the 1998 sexual battery cases in both Pinellas County and Venice.
According to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department, when detectives interviewed Thomas, he denied any involvement in the crimes. He is currently booked in St. Joseph County Jail and is awaiting extradition to Pinellas County.
Pinellas County Sheriff Robert Gualtieri hosted a press conference regarding the case Monday.
“This case demonstrates how evolving science, technology, collaboration between law enforcement agencies and good old fashioned ‘boots-on-the-ground’ police work, come together,” he said.