Sexual assault and kidnapping suspect appears in court

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) -The man charged in connection with three cold case abductions and sexual assaults appeared in court Monday.

52-year-old George Wayne Aldridge was arrested Friday and charged in connection with three sexual assault cases that occurred between 2009 to 2016.

Police say the three cases Aldridge has been charged in were previously considered cold.

“There’s a perception that a cold case is something that’s sitting in a file somewhere under a desk that nobody ever pays attention to and any of these cases that are gonna match this criteria,” said Lt. Nathaniel Muller of the Lexington Police Department’s special victims section. “Investigators are still continuing to look at it we just don’t have anything at this moment that we can take investigative steps on.”

Court records say, in two of the cases, the women told police they were walking in the early morning hours when they came in contact with the suspect.

In one case, the victim says she was approached by a man in a pickup truck. He offered her a ride home, eventually pulling her into the vehicle. She says he drove her to a field where he assaulted her. She was found running completely nude down Tates Creek Road.

In the third case, the victim was found nude in a field in Jessamine County. She told police she didn’t remember how she got there but remembered being at a party near State Street earlier in the night.

Lexington police say these cases were previously cold, but experts say DNA can still be tested years later.

“Our newer technology is able to use smaller and smaller bits of DNA even down to single skin cells in some cases, so the possibility of re-opening a cold case is actually quite good,” said forensic scientist and associate professor at EKU Dr. Cindy Tran.

DNA from these cases was sent to Kentucky State Police for testing in 2019, providing a family surname.

“Perhaps you, yourself, are not in the database, but a close relative is, and we can say, well, there’s some similar patterning here that indicates that this DNA is from a relative of this other person that’s in our database,” said Dr. Tran.

Further investigation later led police to Aldridge and DNA obtained from a piece of abandoned property was a match. He was arrested Friday.

His charges include:

• Three counts of Kidnapping
• Two counts of 1st degree Rape
• Two counts of 1st degree Sexual Abuse
• Two counts of 1st degree Sodomy
• One count of 1st degree Wanton Endangerment

Copyright 2023 WKYT. All rights reserved.