Columbus Police Link 1997 Rape to Serial Attacks Across U.S.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A decades-old rape case in Columbus has been solved and linked to a string of serial assaults across the country, police announced Thursday.

Columbus police said DNA evidence has tied Sean Patrick McNulty, formerly of Ventura, California, to a 1997 rape in the city, as well as to four other home invasion rapes in Michigan and California dating back to the early 1980s. McNulty died by suicide in 1997 in Emmett Township, Michigan, after becoming a suspect in a separate rape investigation in Indiana.

Investigators used DNA extracted from the 1997 Columbus case and matched it with samples from sexual assaults in Ventura in 1982 and 1983, as well as attacks in Okemos, Michigan, in 1994 and Birmingham, Michigan, in 1995. The breakthrough came in March 2024 through the Ventura County Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, which led to a joint investigation involving multiple agencies and an investigative genealogist with Columbus police.

Columbus Police Chief Elaine R. Bryant credited the persistence of investigators and national cooperation in solving the case. “I am grateful that our Division’s hard work and tenacity over the years has brought closure to the victim in this violent case,” she said in a statement.

The survivor of the 1997 rape told police she never expected the case would be solved and thanked investigators for what she described as lifting a weight from her shoulders.

Authorities say McNulty lived in several states and overseas during his lifetime. Investigations continue to determine whether he may have committed additional crimes.

Anyone with information about McNulty or related cases is urged to contact the Columbus Police Case Review Unit at (614) 645-4036 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at (614) 461-8477.