Tulsa Police Make Arrest In 2003 Rape Case Thanks To DNA Match, Funding

Tulsa Police arrested a man this week for a rape that happened 18 years ago. Police said they recently got a DNA match to a rape kit that was collected when the crime happened in 2003.

TPD said Alfred Wilson raped the woman just 16 days after he got out of prison early, for a different rape. 

Wilson is in the Tulsa County Jail now, and Tulsa Police said it is because of a federal grant they received years ago to help clear out the backlog of rape kits.

The arrest affidavit said the rape happened near Apache and Harvard, in an abandoned home behind TCC.

The affidavit said the victim reported the rape to police when it happened in 2003, saying the man even told her his name was "Al Wilson."

Tulsa Police Special Victims Unit Lt. Darin Ehrenrich said the woman knows Wilson was arrested this week for the crime. 

"We contacted her and she was willing to go forward, and she was willing to testify in court about what happened to her all these years ago,” Ehrenrich said.

Records show Wilson served 20 years of a 30-year sentence for rape. He was out only 16 days when police said this rape happened.

A $1.5 million grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance, which is part of the Department of Justice, helped pay for hundreds of rape kits to be tested, leading to a match to Wilson, which led to a police interview.

"He told the detective that he had never seen this girl before, that he had never met her, that we have the wrong person and that we can run the DNA again and it will show we have the wrong person,” Ehrenrich said.

Police said they did run the DNA again, and said it confirmed it was a match.

Ehrenrich said years ago, there were more than 3,000 untested rape kits in Tulsa’s inventory. Of the 453 kits that have been tested so far, 25 resulted in matches.

Police said they received the grant in 2018, and this is the first time the federal grant money has led to an arrest in a sexual assault cold case in Tulsa.

"I think this case is the exact reason that we applied for this grant, so we can go back and look at these cases and get some of these victims justice,” Ehrenrich said.

Police said one reason rape kits were not tested years ago, is because victims did not want to pursue prosecution. Police hope more arrests will come from all the kits now being tested.