DNA allegedly links man to 1987 rape
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GONZALES — An Ascension Parish grand jury indicted a man today in a 1987 rape using DNA collected more than 15 years after the crime occurred.
Billy Joe Patton, 48, of 540 Hall Burr Road, Eclectic, Ala., is being held on a $2 million bond in the Ascension Parish jail on counts of aggravated kidnapping and forcible rape.
On Feb. 8, 1987, Patton allegedly offered assistance to a Lafayette woman and her male friend who had gotten stuck on the shoulder of Interstate 10, said Assistant District Attorney Robin C. O’Bannon.
She said Patton took the unidentified man to get help and then came back for the victim, telling her she needed to bring cash to a wrecker service.
Patton then refused to drop her off at any of the exits and repeatedly asked the victim for sex, O’Bannon said. The accused eventually pulled off I-10 onto a service road where he raped the woman, said O’Bannon, who presented evidence to the grand jury.
O’Bannon said Patton dropped off victim in Prairieville, where she reported the attack.
In 2003, Patton was arrested in Sulfur Springs, Texas, on an unrelated crime and his DNA was submitted to a national database, O’Bannon said. Four years later, Louisiana authorities linked Patton to the 1987 rape, the 23rd Judicial District prosecutor said.
On June 2, Patton was arrested at his home in Alabama and waived extradition to Louisiana, O’Bannon.
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