On August 12, 1990, “Jane” was working the late shift as a waitress at the Western Sizzlin in Flowood. Jane later said she took the job because she was new in the area and wanted to meet as many people as possible.

Once off work, she talked with a few coworkers in the parking lot. One of these coworkers was interested in purchasing the Dodge van. Jane and her coworkers all got in the van and looked around. After congregating for a few minutes, the group separated, and Jane got into her van to go home. She followed a coworker the short distance to the downtown exit in Brandon.

Just a half-mile from her home, Jane stopped at the Texaco to get her children some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Jane’s co-worker honked a final goodbye as she continued to her home. Jane went inside to make her purchase and noticed the windows in the gas station were fogged because of the humidity. She noticed a man near the pay phone to her right and a family with car problems to her left.

Jane was only inside for a few minutes. She got back in her van and started the quick trip home. After driving a short distance, a shadow emerged in her rear-view mirror. This, however, was no shadow but a man wielding a knife. This man rushed her and quickly put his knife to her neck. This knife caused a cut to her neck. He shouted that she stop the van. He reached up and put the van into park. He commanded her to get on the vehicle's floorboard and not look at him. All the while, this man kept a knife at her neck. She complied, and he drove the van to a rural area in the county. Once at this location, he parked the van and forced Jane to strip off her clothing. This man then forcibly raped Jane at knifepoint.

Once he was finished, the attacker made her cover her face as they left the area. He drove back to what she would later discover was the Exit 56 onramp headed west. She told the authorities he rummaged through her belongings. She reported to the police that she was missing $40 and some Western Sizzlin name cards. He instructed her not to call the police. He told her if she called the police, he would come to her home and harm her family. The attacker left her and slithered into the darkness to make his getaway.

Jane drove the van onto the interstate and quickly realized she was headed west towards the Crossgates Brandon exit. She made her way back home, at which point she called for an ambulance. Once at Rankin General Hospital, she was subjected to a rape examination. Investigator Don Magee came to the hospital early that morning to collect the evidence from the rape examination.

Investigator Magee thoroughly investigated the case. He took photos of the van and canvased the nearby area. He looked at other potential suspects. He took Jane for hypnosis to try and help her remember further details of the rape. He faxed reports across the nation to other agencies looking for similar crimes. The crime went cold until they received a letter from Rubin Weeks.

Weeks was doing time in Missouri for similar crimes. Weeks claimed to have committed the crimes against Jane. Despite his letter, Brandon Police Department was skeptical of the confession. Nevertheless, Weeks was interviewed by Investigator Magee. The details provided did not match the facts of the crime. Nevertheless, Investigator Magee collected evidence from the sexual assault examination as well as evidence from Rubin Weeks. That evidence was sent to the crime lab, and though Weeks was not a match, he could not be ruled out.

Meanwhile, Jane continued to try to recover from this crime. Her husband was also having trouble dealing with the crime. Overcome with guilt from being unable to protect Jane, he tried to take his own life but was unsuccessful. He was left as a quadriplegic and later died of those injuries. Jane was left with several small children to raise on her own. Despite law enforcement’s best efforts, the case went cold.

David Ruth is the current Rankin County Coroner. However, in 1990 David was a patrol officer with Brandon Police Department. David was not working the night of Jane’s rape, but he became aware of this crime the next day. This type of thing didn’t happen in Brandon in 1990.

In 2004, David progressed in his career and was an investigator with Brandon PD. This case had always bothered David. So, when David became an investigator, he decided to reopen the case. After a thorough review of the file and the evidence, Ruth was also convinced that Weeks did not commit the crimes. By 2004, DNA had progressed and was used in many cases to help solve crimes. As a result, David sent the evidence collected from Jane and Weeks to the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory for comparison.

In 2004, the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory contracted with Reliagene in New Orleans, Louisiana to perform some of their DNA testing. Through two different tests in 2005 and 2006, Weeks was eliminated as a suspect using DNA analysis. There was however an unknown DNA profile developed. This unknown DNA profile not (Rubin Weeks) was the person that raped Jane. This DNA profile was sent to the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory and was uploaded to CODIS (Combined Organized DNA Index System).

The case went cold until 2017. That was until Deedra Hughes, a DNA Analyst and CODIS administrator with the Mississippi Forensic Laboratory, was notified that the DNA profile in Jane’s case matched a case in Memphis, Tennessee. Though the match in Tennessee didn’t happen until 2017, the crime in Memphis occurred just 30 days after the crime in Brandon.

Annette Cotton, an investigator with the cold case unit with the Shelby County Tennessee Sheriff’s Department, contacted Beau Edgington with the Brandon Police Department to compare details of the crime. In the Memphis case, “Kim” got off work after a late shift at a local Memphis Hospital. She stopped her SUV at a local convenience store to grab a quick snack before heading home. She made her purchase and returned to her SUV to drive the rest of the way home. As she began to pull out of the parking lot, a man in the back seat sprung from behind her and sliced open her face. He then put the knife to her neck and forced her to the passenger seat. He then instructed Kim not to look at him. Instinctively she glanced over, and in return, he struck her already injured face.

He drove Kim to a remote area and stopped the car on the interstate. He made her take off her clothing. He then forcibly raped Kim by knifepoint. He covered her face and then drove back to the interstate. He then robbed her. Before leaving, he looked at her license and threatened her. He told her that if she called the police, he would come to her home and harm her family. Finally, he took her keys and threw them into the darkness. She locked the car after he exited. At some point, she went to get the keys and inadvertently locked herself out of the vehicle. This left Kim naked on the interstate in the middle of the night. Several truckers stopped and helped her to the hospital. Once at the hospital, she was given a sexual assault examination. The evidence from this examination stayed dormant until 2016, when Shelby County, Tennessee, processed and uploaded the evidence to CODIS along with other cold cases.

The case went cold again until 2020. By 2020, David Ruth had left the Brandon Police Department and was working with the Rankin County District Attorney’s Office as a part-time investigator. He was also the Rankin County Coroner.

David had repeatedly told the prosecutors in the District Attorney’s office about Jane’s case. Assistant District Attorney Ryan Berry previously read several books about the Golden State Killer (GSK) and how investigators in California used Forensic Genetic Genealogy to capture him. In 2021, the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office conducted a seminar in Oxford featuring former California district attorney Greg Toten. Toten gave examples of how they caught the GSK. Berry left there believing investigators could solve the case using genetic genealogy. Berry and Ruth pitched this idea to District Attorney John K. Bramlett. He agreed to fund this pricey endeavor. Berry and Ruth then contacted the Brandon Police Department evidence custodian, Mark Miller, to locate the evidence that had been lying dormant in the secure vault for so many years.

After locating the evidence, the Rankin County District Attorney’s Office contacted Deedra Hughes with the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory about how to proceed with further testing. She recommended a company called Bode Technology. Bode Technology is a private DNA laboratory that provides Investigative Genetic Genealogy services. Teresa Vreeland is the Director of the Forensic Genealogy division of Bode and helped the Rankin District Attorney’s Office with this process. David Ruth sent Bode the evidence in order to develop another DNA profile of the suspect. Once the suspect’s DNA profile was developed from the evidence swabs, that profile was uploaded to find genealogical matches. This is similar to the process used by websites like ancestry.com and 23andme.com. After a long and exhaustive process of reconstructing family trees using birth, death, and marriage records from across the county, Bode worked backward to build the suspect's family tree.

In 2023, Bode was able to focus these matches and determined the perpetrator of this crime was either Skaggs or one of his two brothers. In 2023, Daniel Ray Skaggs was a resident of Oklahoma. Daniel Ray Skaggs’ background was investigated, and it was discovered that he had been charged and convicted of several counts of rape in 1977 in the Dallas, Texas area. In these rapes, he broke into young women’s apartments and ambushed them. Once inside their homes, he would forcibly rape them. He was convicted of rape and burglary, and he served approximately eight years in a Texas prison. Once released, he moved to Arkansas, where he became a truck driver for Meyers Bread Company, making deliveries across the country.

*Photo from Texas Dept. of Corrections (1977)*

The Rankin District Attorney’s office also learned that in 1991 in Newnan, Georgia, Skaggs abducted another woman after she left Walmart. Tate Washington, an officer in Newnan, noticed a suspicious man in a vehicle and attempted to make an investigatory stop. “Cindy” jumped out of the van and was yelling, “knife”. Cindy ran to this officer for safety. Officer Washington attempted to stop this person and was almost struck by the abductor. The person was eventually stopped and was identified as Daniel Ray Skaggs. Cindy was a native of Germany and left the country before Skaggs could be tried for the kidnapping and attempted rape. Skaggs was acquitted on charges of assault on an officer and presumably returned to Arkansas.

*Photo from Skaggs arrest in Newnan Georgia (1991)*

After learning of Skaggs's criminal history, the Rankin County District Attorney’s Office contacted the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigations. Agent Josh Dean was assigned to assist with the investigation of this case. Agent Dean surveilled Skaggs and was able to collect discarded items in the trash, including a C-PAP mask and a pill bottle with the name Daniel Ray Skaggs printed on the label.

*Items of trash collected from Skaggs’s residence*

Dean sent these items of trash to Bode Technology to see if they could develop a DNA profile of Skaggs. This profile of Skaggs was developed and compared to the 2005 Reliagene DNA report. The results were staggering. Skaggs’ DNA was a match, with a statistical probability being 1 in 660 quintillion.

With the DNA test results in hand, Assistant District Attorneys Kathryn Newman and Ryan Berry and the Victim’s Assistance Coordinator Leslie Owens from the Rankin County District Attorney’s Office traveled to South Carolina to inform Jane of the updates in her case. Once landing at the airport, the rental car they had reserved was not available. Desperate to make their appointment, the trio rented a U-Haul truck for the day to make the trip to the rural area where Jane lives.

*Leslie Owens, Kathryn Newman and Ryan Berry*

By 2023, the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department had agreed to assist in the investigation of Jane’s case. Deputy John Burt had an arrest warrant presented to Rankin County Judge David Morrow for rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery. This warrant was sent to Agent Dean in Oklahoma. Dean developed an operational plan for the arrest of Skaggs. Deputy Burt traveled to Oklahoma for the arrest of Skaggs, which occurred on March 14, 2023.

Agent Dean and Deputy Burt interviewed Skaggs. Skaggs initially denied all allegations but then changed his story to tell the police that he could not remember anything from the time of the rapes. Despite his claiming a lack of memory, Skaggs was able to tell officers precise details about the type of truck he drove in 1990 and 1991. Skaggs refused to waive extradition to face the charges back in Mississippi. The District Attorney’s Office was prepared for this as they had already started the extradition process. Soon thereafter, Skaggs was extradited to Mississippi to face his crimes.

Once in Mississippi, Deputy Burt presented Judge David Morrow with a search warrant for the DNA of Skaggs. Burt went to Skaggs and obtained a buccal swab from him. Burt then took this swab to the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory for comparison to the original Reliagene DNA profile developed from the 05/06 sample. Joe Heflin, a DNA Analyst with the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory, developed a profile from the buccal swab. He then compared this sample to the 2006 Reliagene DNA sample that was developed from the sexual assault kit obtained from Jane in 1990. Again, the results were staggering. Skaggs DNA was a match with a 1 in 10 billion statistical probability. Joe Heflin later testified these results were capped at 10 billion (the approximate population of the earth).

A Rankin County Grand Jury indicted Daniel Ray Skaggs on April 6, 2023, for Rape, Kidnapping, and Armed Robbery crimes. His trial was set for June 19, 2023, with Judge Dewey Arthur presiding. ADA Kathryn Newman and ADA Ryan Berry represented the State. A jury was selected on June 19, 2023, with testimony beginning June 20, 2023. The State called 13 witnesses over the next two days, including Jane and Kim. The case was given to the jury on June 22, 2023. After deliberating an hour and a half, the jury found Skaggs guilty of Rape and Kidnapping. Immediately after the trial, Judge Arthur proceeded with sentencing. Skaggs was sentenced as a violent habitual offender and given two life sentences consecutive.

After the verdict, District Attorney John Bramlett said, “Daniel Ray Skaggs is a serial rapist who has been a sexual predator since at least 1977. I’m sure Skaggs thought he had gotten away with these crimes, but we didn’t stop working to get justice for these brave ladies. The science caught up with Daniel Ray Skaggs, and as a result, he will spend his remaining years in prison.” After the verdict, ADA Ryan Berry stated, “This case would not have been solved without the hard work of several different law enforcement agencies. We would like to thank the Brandon Police Department, Rankin County Sheriff’s Department, FBI, Mississippi Forensics Laboratory, Oklahoma Bureau of Investigations, Bode Technology and the Pearl Police Department for all their help and teamwork in securing this conviction.”

Bramlett also said, “I want to encourage others that may have been attacked by Skaggs to come forward and contact their local law enforcement agency. We believe these are not the only women Skaggs attached and would love help others find justice and peace. Also, we urge law enforcement agencies across the country with cold cases meeting these facts to process and upload any sexual assault kits. We believe there will be other victims of Mr. Skaggs who we would love to see have some closure.”

Defendant:

Name: Daniel Ray Skaggs

Date of Birth: 11/8/1956

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SERIAL RAPIST CONVICTED USING FORENSIC GENETIC GENEALOGY

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