More than 30 years after he allegedly raped and killed a Marietta woman and her 13-year-old daughter, Ronald Lee Kyles is back in Cobb County to face charges in connection with the brutal crime, the county’s top prosecutor said Friday.
Kyles, 62, was booked into the Cobb County Adult Detention Center late Thursday in the deaths of Sharon Brady and her 13-year-old daughter, Samantha, Cobb District Attorney Vic Reynolds said.
Sharon and Samantha Brady were found stabbed to death in their Cole Street apartment at the now demolished Fort Hill Homes community on Sept. 12, 1986. Sharon Brady’s 3-year-old daughter was also in the apartment but was unharmed.
It took decades for forensic evidence testing to advance enough to help identify a suspect.
A 2014 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice paid for testing of forensic evidence preserved in the case, Reynolds said. And DNA evidence was used to determine a suspect.
Kyles, 62, was arrested in November 2015 and indicted in January 2016, Reynolds said.
At the time of his arrest, he was in a Pennsylvania state prison on an unrelated aggravated assault conviction, Reynolds said. Kyles fought extradition to Georgia, officials said.
But last month Gov. Nathan Deal and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf signed an executive agreement to return Kyles to Georgia to face charges, including eight counts of felony murder and aggravated child molestation.
Kyles was also charged with two counts of malice murder, burglary, two counts of rape, two counts of aggravated assault and aggravated sodomy.
He is scheduled to be arraigned soon.
“I do not think that whenever a family member loses a loved one they can ever find closure,” Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren said. “But hopefully this will help the Brady family in some way.”
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