cleveland.com | Kaylee Remington
MEDINA, Ohio — DNA evidence led state and local investigators to a more than two-decade old rape case that went unsolved.
Samuel Legg, who was 29 at the time the attack took place, is being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail on a $1 million bond after his arrest in January in the sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl.
He is expected to make his first court appearance in the case Thursday morning in Medina County Common Pleas Court, court records show. He faces two felony counts of rape, records say
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, Medina County Prosecutor Forrest Thompson and other county officials made the announcement of Legg’s arrest at a press conference Wednesday at the Medina County Sheriff’s Department.
The 17-year-old girl reported in 1997 that she hitched a ride with a truck driver after visiting her boyfriend in Cleveland. The attack happened on the trip on at what was once a Speedway truck stop at Interstate 71 near U.S. 224 in Medina, Thompson said.
The case was unsolved until DNA samples taken from Legg linked to the rape kit, identifying Legg, of Arizona.
With technological advancements of the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, years of work, a positive DNA match was made. Legg was extradited back to Ohio from Arizona.