Man please guilty to kidnap and rape in Clay Co.
CLAY COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – 16th Circuit Court District District Attorney Scott Colom is praising persistent police work for bringing a rapist to justice.
On Tuesday, January 21, Frederick Gandy entered a guilty plea in Clay County Circuit Court.
It was a case that took more than 20 years to close.
In 2022 a detective with the West Point Police Department took a closer look at the rape and kidnapping case from 2003, and found that there was physical evidence that was never sent to the crime lab for DNA analysis.
The crime lab was able to get a DNA profile and entered it into the CODIS DNA database, where they got a hit, identifying Gandy as the suspect.
Investigators realized that there was another rape case from the same day, and again found untested evidence.
When it was tested, it also came back to Gandy.
He was arrested and indicted in 2022.
District Attorney Scott Colom said it has been a long time coming, but there is finally some justice and closure for the victims.
“One of the things that frustrated them was that because there had never been an arrest, certain people didn’t believe them. And, having to live with that, at a young age, over decades to finally have the legal system and the police able to make it very clear that you were telling the truth. You were raped. Your innocence was taken away from you, and I know that my office and me as District Attorney, care about what happens to you, and we’re going to punish the person that did that to you,” said Colom.
Frederick Gandy was given a mandatory 25 year prison sentence.
