Bond set for man arrested in 2006 Miami University rape case involving DNA genealogy tracing

Ailes was arraigned Friday morning by Butler County Common Pleas Judge Keith Spaeth, who set bond at $775,000. He is scheduled to be back in court Jan. 6 for a pretrial hearing.

Ailes, who was a construction worker in Oxford in 2006, was indicted Thursday afternoon by a Butler County grand jury for rape, aggravated burglary and aggravated robbery. All charges carry a gun specification alleging gun was used in the crimes.

The assault occurred on Jan. 9, 2006, at an off campus house, according to the indictment and Gmoser.

The suspect wore a mask, but his face was visible to the woman for a brief time and a sketch of the suspect was developed. His DNA also was found.

After forcing the woman to commit several sex acts, Ailes took $60 from her purse, Gmoser said during the arraignment.

In March 2006, a similar attack happened in Fayette County, Ind. DNA collected there matched the DNA in the Oxford case, but there was no match to DNA entered in any law enforcement data base. The case went cold.

Gmoser said Ailes wore a mask in the Indiana assault, but “didn’t speak a word” because the victim was known to him and his voice would have been recognizable.

Gmoser said Newton and his office had been working for years with experts from Parabon NanoLabs to track down the suspect using genealogy DNA databases to piece together a family tree of the suspect.

“And we finally did,” Gmoser said.

Investigators were able to find the suspect’s father and then through unraveling a web of genealogy eventually found the mother. But the man did not know he had fathered the son and the mother didn’t know her husband was not the father, Gmoser said.

“As it turns out, the mother of this defendant was not aware that the father was someone other than her husband. She had a relationship outside of her marriage with father of this defendant, later she have birth to the defendant and thought her then husband was the father,” Gmoser said. That is what made it so complicated.”

He said he will be prosecuting the case himself along with Assistant Prosecutor Lindsay Sheehan.

“The science of this investigation is fascinating,” Gmoser said.