More than two decades after a 19-year-old woman reported she was raped at knifepoint by a stranger at the Penn State Blue Golf Course, an arrest has been made in the case.
Kurt A. Rillema, 51, was taken into custody on Monday at his home in Oakland County, Michigan, where he is also facing charges for a similar rape in September 1999 at the Twin Lakes Golf Course, nearly a year before the 2000 assault in State College, Centre County First Assistant District Attorney Sean McGraw said at a press conference on Tuesday.
DNA evidence and forensic genealogical work linked Rillema to both crimes, according to court documents. He was charged in the cases following a cooperative investigation between Penn State police and the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.
McGraw said the woman in the Penn State case is aware of the developments.
“She’s been kept apprised throughout the investigation and she is … very eager to assist the investigation,” he said.
The woman was jogging near the 18th hole of the Blue Course at about 8:15 p.m. on July 27, 2000, when she was approached by a thin white male, approximately 25 to 26-years-old, with brown hair who was wearing khaki shorts, golf spikes and no shirt, according to a criminal complaint. He asked her first for a Band-Aid then for directions to the clubhouse, and after telling him she couldn’t help, she attempted to leave the area.
He then came up behind her and held a knife to her throat, telling her she would not be harmed if she kept quiet, police wrote. He dragged her to a wooded area, punched her in the stomach and raped her, according to the complaint. He allegedly told her not to tell anyone or he would come after her, then fled the area.
A DNA sample from a rape kit was sent to the state police crime lab, which developed a DNA profile and uploaded it to the federal database CODIS in 2001.
“Despite the immediate notification of the police by the victim, her assailant fled and was able to avoid being apprehended, but he left behind a critical piece of evidence, his DNA,” McGraw said. “… Beyond that DNA, there was really no viable evidence that could lead police to the perpetrator. There were no eyewitnesses, there was no physical evidence, no surveillance footage, no cell phone data.”
A CODIS search in 2004 found that the DNA profile matched a forensic sample in the 1999 Michigan case, in which a white male asked a golf course employee for directions to the clubhouse then approached her when she was alone behind a building, threatened her with violence and raped her.
In 2011, then-Penn State detective Ryan Olson filed a criminal complaint against an unknown male, referred to as “John Doe,” whose DNA matched the profile in order to preserve the statute of limitations.
Ten years passed, however, without any leads, until Penn State police detective Nick Sproveri reopened the investigation in July 2021, recognizing that a genealogical DNA approach could lead to a suspect, as had happened in two other recent Centre County cold cases.
Sproveri worked with Oakland County Sheriff’s Office detective sergeant Eric Tremonti, who submitted the Michigan DNA sample to a genetic genealogy lab in 2022.
In January 2023, the investigation using genetic genealogy results determined the suspect was likely Rillema or one of his two brothers. Each brother was investigated, and the detectives determined Kurt Rillema was the likely assailant, based on his age and physical features as described by the woman in the 2000 case. He also lived close to the Twin Lakes Golf Course at the time of the 1999 rape, and police concluded he was likely visiting one of his brothers, who attended Penn State in 2000, at the time of the Blue Course rape, according to court documents.
Investigators conducted surveillance on Rillema and on Jan. 31 recovered a discarded Styrofoam coffee cup from which he had been drinking.
The cup was sent to the Michigan State Police crime lab for testing and was found to have DNA matching the DNA profile of the perpetrator in the 1999 Michigan rape and 2000 Penn State rape.
Sproveri, Penn State detective Rob Ruggiero and State College police detective Steve Bosak were present for Rillema’s arrest on Monday. Rillema was arraigned on Tuesday morning in Michigan and is being held without bond. A detainer has been placed on Rillema for extradition proceedings to Pennsylvania if he is released on bail, McGraw said.
“We are in the process of discussing with Michigan authorities the sequence of prosecution in these cases,” he added.
In Michigan, Rillema is charged with first- and second-degree felony criminal sexual conduct.
“Victims of violent crimes, like rape, can never forget that terrible moment,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael J. Bouchard said in a statement. “It is incumbent on us to never give up on finding perpetrators of these crimes and bring them to justice. With new technology and investigative capabilities, sometimes we can close cases that have been open for years if not decades. That is what happened in this case. We will never give up.”
In Centre County, Rillema will be charged with felony counts of rape, sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault, and misdemeanor counts of indecent assault, unlawful restraint, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.
McGraw commended Sproveri for “his exemplary efforts in bringing this defendant to justice,” as well as the approximately 20 other investigators who have worked on the case over the past 23 years. He also acknowledged Bosak, who led the county’s first two genealogical DNA investigations resulting in arrests in recent years.
In the first case, a Port Matilda man pleaded guilty in 2022 to raping four Penn State students between 2010 and 2017. State College police also arrested a Mifflin County man in 2021 for the alleged rape of a Penn State student in 1995. That case is still awaiting trial.
