Man serving life sentence charged in rape cold case

Daryl K. Davis, a St. Louis man already serving nine life sentences in a Missouri prison on similar charges, has been charged in the 32-year-old rape of a Cape Girardeau woman.

Assistant prosecutor Julie Hunter filed the class A felony charge Wednesday in Cape Girardeau Circuit Court, according to online documents made public Thursday. The incident took place on Oct. 29, 1980, in Cape Girardeau, the filings say. Hunter did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment Thursday afternoon.

Judge Gary Kamp signed an arrest warrant in the case and set a $250,000 cash-only bond, although a court date has yet to be set. Davis, who would have been 23 at the time, does not have a lawyer in the case, according to the filings.

Probable cause statements that likely detail why police suspect Davis have not yet been made available to the media.

According to newspaper articles published at the time, the 19-year-old victim told police she was attacked after a man with a knife came into her Cape Girardeau apartment at 5:30 a.m. He apparently gained entry through a window after removing a screen, the article said, before he placed a pillow over her head and raped her.

Former Cape Girardeau police chief Henry Gerecke offered a comment in the short article that may shed light on why an arrest wasn't made earlier. The chief told a reporter that the woman's account was hindered because she could not see her attacker. The attack took place as the victim's roommate slept. The roommate reported to police she did not see or hear anything, the article said.

Davis, a 55-year-old inmate at Missouri's Potosi Correctional Center, faces the possibility of another life sentence if convicted.

Davis, according to Missouri prison officials, is in prison on 16 felony offenses, including a 15-year sentence handed down in 1990 for a first-degree burglary charge in Cape Girardeau County.

Davis has been convicted of rape eight times and forcible sodomy once, all in the St. Louis area. The rape convictions occurred in 1987 and 1988 and the forcible sodomy conviction was in 1992.