DNA testing yields another rape conviction in northeast Ohio

CLEVELAND (AP) — An effort to process a backlog of rape kits for DNA matches has yielded another conviction and long prison sentence in Cuyahoga County.

The county prosecutor’s office says 70-year-old Warren Durham was sentenced to 41 years in prison Wednesday for raping four women in the mid-1990s. DNA testing of old rape kits linked him to the unsolved sexual-assault cases that occurred between November 1993 and November 1995.

Durham was found guilty by a jury last month of charges including rape, kidnapping and gross sexual imposition.

Processing of the backlog of rape kits in Ohio’s largest county has led to the convictions of at least 10 serial rapists. More than 3,900 sexual assault kits from the county have been tested for DNA through the initiative.