GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — A nearly 40-year-old rape case has been reopened after the victim reached out to Channel 9 following a report she saw on WSOC-TV from 2013.
The report was about a man known as the ski mask rapist and the woman noticed striking similarities to the terror she endured in 1979.
"He pulled me up out of the bed by my hair and he stuck what I thought was a gun at that time at the back of my neck and said if I screamed he would blow my head off,” the woman, who is being identified only as Sandra, told Channel 9 anchor Liz Foster.
She has thought about that night every day for 38 years. The rapist was never caught.
"I went through years and years of counseling, therapy, medications, and it not only devastated me, it devastated my whole family," she said; adding both her parents died never seeing their daughter get justice.
Sandra opened up to Channel 9 after she came across an online report we did in 2013 about Jerry Lee Brooks, who is known as the ski mask rapist. Brooks was convicted of raping women in the Charlotte area in the late 1970s. As part of a plea deal, he confessed to raping nearly a dozen women.
"My rapist wore a ski mask as well. And it was the same time period," Sandra said.
After Channel 9 reached out to Gaston County Police, an investigator confirmed detectives will take another look at the cold case. They plan to compare the investigation with Charlotte-Mecklenburg police and see if Brooks is their suspect.
"You can't put into words what justice would mean," Sandra said.
Over the years, she has kept a record of conversations with different investigators, clippings of news articles of other rapes in the area and more. She said she has tried for years to get her case reopened.
As she prays for overdue justice, she has a message for victims of other unsolved crimes: Please don't give up.
An investigator with Gaston County police said there is no statute of limitations in this case. When Channel 9 asked about testing DNA evidence, he said there isn't any with the case file. But Sandra showed Foster hospital records and a rape kit was performed.
Channel 9 will continue checking with investigators.
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