Two Ohio cold case murders from more than 44 years ago may have been the work of a 75-year-old convicted rapist who was tried just last year in a 1991 cold case homicide -- and acquitted.
Karen Bentz, 18, and Loretta Jean Davis, 20, were abducted, sexually assaulted and stabbed more than one dozen times before their bodies were dumped on the side of the road in the 1970s, FOX8 Cleveland reported.
On Monday, Gustave Sapharas pleaded not guilty before a Tallmadge County judge to an indictment charging him with the two murders, News 5 Cleveland reported. He was ordered held on $5 million bond.
In February 2018 Sapharas was tried for murder in the death of 21-year-old Bonita Parker, who died in 1991 in Licking County, Ohio. Authorities linked Sapharas to that case via a DNA match. Parker had been stabbed in the heart, the Associated Press reported.
The jury in that case cleared Sapharas after his defense attorney argued the DNA evidence only showed Sapharas had been with Parker, who worked as a prostitute.
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