SERIAL RAPIST—CONVICTED AGAIN TODAY

DNA Catches Up With Jurdis Nelson in a 2003 Mother’s Day Rape

Sentencing is set for tomorrow, August 2, 2007 at 9:00 a.m., in Courtroom 7-E before Judge Wendy Shoob in the case of serial rapist Jurdis Nelson convicted today—for the 3rd time. Nelson has been charged with rape or attempted rape on four previous occasions. Today, a Fulton County Superior Court jury found the 47-year-old defendant guilty of rape, aggravated sodomy, aggravated assault and possession of a knife during the commission of a felony in a 2003 case. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

This defendant targeted homeless women…attacking the victim in this case on May 11, 2003 outside a church in the 200 block of Flat Shoals Avenue in Atlanta. He lured her into an abandoned recycling plant…raped, sodomized and stabbed her over a period of several hours. Though he threatened to kill her if she reported the rape, she did, and was taken to the hospital where semen evidence was recovered. In March 2006, The GBI matched that rape kit evidence to Nelson’s DNA.

In 1995, the defendant was convicted of a similar rape. That victim testified during this trial that Nelson brutally beat, raped and stabbed her in the neck as she was walking through Renaissance Park in downtown Atlanta. Her injuries were so severe she needed massive reconstructive facial surgery. In 2004, Nelson was charged with rape, aggravated sodomy and aggravated assault on two other homeless women in the Flat Shoals Road area. The victims disappeared before trial and the cases were dismissed by another Superior Court judge. Nelson is now serving a six year sentence following his conviction in March in Dekalb County for the December 2005 attempted rape of an 86-year-old woman.

The case was prosecuted by Senior ADAs Michael Herskowitz and Tanya Miller of the Crimes Against Women and Children Unit. It was investigated by J. Morales and L. Roey of the Atlanta Police Department and Fulton DA Investigator Antoinette Beyah. Scott Long of the DA’s Victim-Witness program provided assistance to the victims.

CONTACT: Lyn Vaughn, 404.730.6860 (office); 770.597.6963 (cell); lyn.vaughn@co.fulton.ga.us