DNA helps clear 2007 Tampa Sexual Battery Crate

TAMPA, Florida (WWSB) – A 2007 sexual battery was cleared up 14 years later thanks to a DNA match.

On January 27, 2007, an unknown man helped a woman home, where she was then sexually beaten. A DNA sample was taken, but it did not correspond to any known culprit.

Detectives re-examined the sample in the hopes that genetic genealogy could identify a suspect. They ran the suspect’s DNA through a familial DNA database twice.

Then, in March 2021, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced that a possible suspect had been identified as Jared T. Vaughn, born February 23, 1977.

A likely DNA search warrant was obtained to collect a sample of DNA from Vaughn, who lived in West Virginia. The warrant was passed to a detective in Parkersburg, West Virginia, who agreed to assist in the case by issuing an arrest warrant there.

In April, Tampa police detectives met with the Parkersburg investigator, West Virginia. Detectives met with Vaughn at his apartment and served the warrant by collecting his cheek swab. The lab compared the samples from Vaughn to the sample from the rape kit.

Police say Vaughn’s DNA matched DNA evidence from 2007, with the DNA profile more than 700 billion times more likely if the sample was from Jared Vaughn than from an unrelated person.

Vaughn surrendered to the sexual battery charge.

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