NORFOLK, Va. — The City of Norfolk is working to crack 30-year-old cold cases.
Court documents show Norfolk grand juries recently indicted two men for two separate rapes dating back to 1992. Vernon Gay was indicted in November, while Linwood Scott Jr. was indicted this month.
According to the Office of the Norfolk Commonwealth Attorney, Scott is already behind bars for raping a 19-year-old woman in 1994. A judge sentenced Scott to 30 years in prison for that crime in 2022 after detectives retested a rape kit.
13News Now sat down with Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi Friday to discuss how prosecutors were able to bring forward charges decades later.
“People think that they can get away with crimes. They think that if time passes, somehow, they’re out of the woods," Fatehi said. “No matter how old the case, no matter how far in the past, if there’s a break, we will charge.”
Fatehi explained that there’s no statute of limitations for felony cases in Virginia, meaning there’s no time limit for prosecutors to file charges. He said detective work and new technology played a big part in the new indictments.
“These cases, they went cold in the 1990s. Leads petered out and technology wasn’t what it is today," he said.
Fatehi noted a move under former Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring that eliminated the state’s rape kit backlog. The move submitted more than 2,500 rape kits to the national DNA database, assisting detectives in finding new leads.
"With more sophisticated DNA testing, with more comprehensive databases, there were leads available, then," Fatehi explained.
He said that while time may pass, justice can always catch up.
“You may wake up... it may be five years, 10 years, 20 years, but somebody eventually may be coming for you and maybe don’t do whatever it was you were thinking about doing in the first place," Fatehi said.
Gay is due for a trial by a judge in March. Scott was indicted this week and no trial date has been set.