AUSTIN (KXAN) — After nearly 30 years of investigating, authorities said they’ve identified a suspect in connection with the sexual assaults of several elderly women in Bastrop County between 1997 and 2005, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
DPS said the suspect was identified through DNA testing submitted to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a database used to check for possible DNA matches between arrestees and unsolved cases nationwide.
The suspect, Emory Earl McVay, of Smithville, has a lengthy criminal history in Central Texas, which included multiple convictions for burglary, DPS said. McVay died in 2010 at 48-years-old.
DPS said the first case happened in July 1997 when a man broke into a woman’s home in Smithsville and sexually assaulted her.
Another case occurred years later on March 27, 2004. DPS said a woman was asleep when the man broke into her Bastrop County home and assaulted her. After reporting this incident to authorities, investigators collected DNA samples and submitted it to the CODIS.
In October 2004, the lab notified the Texas Rangers of a possible match between the 2004 case and the assault from July 1997, said DPS. The following year, investigators connected a third assault to McVay from July 2005.
Officials believed there was a serial rapist in Bastrop County and conducted DNA samples from potential suspects, but none yielded a match.
In 2021, investigators said the case was eligible for testing and comparison through DPS’ Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) program. On Aug. 11, 2021, a forensics company, Bode Technologies, conducted advanced DNA testing and genealogist research on the samples from the 1997, 2004 and 2005 sexual assaults.
Investigators got a positive match for McVay in August 2025. Officials later found that McVay was dead for more than a decade and no arrests were made.
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