February 10, 2025

OTTAWA — The case of a former trucker accused of a 12-year-old kidnapping and attempted rape has gone to a Franklin County jury. Before the jury began their deliberations, Ralph Corey testified in his own defense. He said he doesn’t remember being in Ottawa on the night someone forced his way into the car of a Williamburg teenager as she left Wal-Mart SuperCenter. A native of Rhode Island, Corey spoke in a pronounced East-Coast accent. When she testified earlier in the week, the Williamsburg teen, now a married woman, told defense attorney John Boyd that she didn’t remember her assailant having an accent. During most of the day, Boyd and Franklin County Attorney Stephen Hunting and his assistant James Ward, sparred over the DNA evidence, which has been at the heart of the case. Corey, an Arizona prison inmate, was charged after the Kansas Bureau of Investigation used a special cold-case computer program that analyzes DNA evidence from old cases and connected him to the 12-year-old crime.
KBI and former KBI officials and technicians testified that the DNA from the crime scene is consistent with Corey’s. A DNA expert testifying for Corey, Kansas University microbiologist Dean Stetler said the KBI’s DNA records in the case are unusually sloppy and must be considered as unreliable.
Thursday, June 21, 4 p.m.

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