| An artist’s rendering (left) of the suspect in an unsolved 1991 rape is compared to the suspect identified in the attack, 42-year-old Timothy Belviy, now incarcerated in state prison in Missouri. |
Justice has finally come to an Indianapolis girl some 13 years after she was raped and beaten by a stranger in a case that was solved by persistent detective work, and a DNA match.
Indianapolis police will announce today that bloodwork links a Missouri inmate to the 1991 attack on a 5-year-old girl.
A picture of the suspect, Timothy Belviy, 42, matches an old artist’s rendering that the girl described to police after she was attacked Sept. 10, 1991 in her home in the 1700 block of South East Street.
After the attack authorities were able to use seminal fluid, but it wasn’t “viable” enough to link to Belviy.
“Back then obviously we weren’t state of the art,” said IPD Sgt. Michael Duke, a former child-abuse detective who oversaw the case. “When this happened we didn’t have the technology to capture him.”
What authorities had was an almost perfect artist’s rendering of a suspect provided by the girl down to the mustache and a pair of rimmed glasses.
Duke said that as technology improved, the evidence collected from the crime was enough to provide a lead DNA source to the Indiana State Police crime lab. A national database of DNA identified Belviy as a potential suspect.
Duke traveled to Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, Mo., and took a new blood sample Aug. 15, 2003. From the blood sample a DNA profile was developed that matched again.
More details will be released at a 1 p.m. news conference.
“We were doing everything that we thought was the best that you could have,” Duke said. “And if I could have looked forward to today and saw what we’re using today, it is ‘Star Wars’.”
IPD Sgt. Steve Staletovich said police can expect to be solving more so-called cold cases in the future thanks to DNA and other modern equipment, including a computer scanner that records both palm and fingerprints.