MIAMI _ Robert Koehler, the suspected "Pillowcase Rapist" who famously eluded cops for decades, is behind bars in Miami _ but the detective work is far from over.
Authorities announced Thursday afternoon that new DNA tests _ conducted exhaustively throughout the night on a sample taken directly from a swab of Koehler's mouth _ tied him to 25 rapes from the early 1980s. Now, as investigators announced the creation of a hotline for victims, detectives must re-interview the women, dig through old files and test more evidence for genetic material to build as many criminal cases as possible.
And they must delve into the long life of the 60-year-old Koehler, an electrician and handyman, who was arrested Saturday at his Palm Bay home, which featured an ominous room hollowed out under the building.
"Police found what appeared to be a dungeon in progress," Miami-Dade prosecutor Laura Adams told reporters Thursday afternoon. "We feared had we not gotten him into custody, he may have had other plans even worse than what he executed on all of these women from these cases."
And inside the room, according to a search warrant, were several safes. One contained a metal nail file with a "sharp/pointy end" wrapped in protective covering, possibly a keepsake weapon used in attacks decades earlier. Also in the safe was an array of women's jewelry.
"Looked like trinkets, possibly souvenirs if you will, of his prior offenses," Adams said.
The announcement of the DNA matches came as Koehler, charged with just one case so far, made a brief appearance Thursday afternoon in a Miami-Dade court hearing. A judge ordered him held in jail with no bond.
Police believe Koehler is the notorious rapist who was blamed for at least 40 rapes in South Florida in the early 1980s. For years, the intruder sneaked into apartments and town homes, raping women at knifepoint while cloaking their heads with a pillowcase or other fabric.
Authorities launched a massive task force looking for the attacker. But the task force was disbanded in 1987, and the cases went cold.
Koehler had been convicted in an October 1990 rape in Palm Beach County that had all the hallmarks of the Pillowcase Rapist. According to an arrest report, the intruder entered an apartment in the middle of the night and raped a woman after he "placed an article over her face."
She immediately called police. Within minutes, officers stopped Koehler driving away from the neighborhood in a white Camaro. "The officer noted that the subject was extremely nervous and he was sweating profusely," the arrest report said.
He was issued several traffic citations. A detective followed up, interviewing Koehler, who then lived in Lake Worth. He at first denied ever being at the crime scene _ then admitted that "he had intercourse with the victim."
A spokesman for the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office on Thursday said the sexual assault happened four or five administrations ago and the office no longer had any records or paperwork that could explain why Koehler only received probation.
Despite the similarities with the cases years earlier in Miami-Dade and Broward, authorities in Palm Beach did not link the case to the Pillowcase Rapist. Koehler wound up pleading guilty in 1991 to sexual battery and was put on probation.
He later violated his probation, court records show, by failing to get a psychological exam and treatment. He wound up serving 120 days in jail and was put back on probation.
Koehler was later required to report as part of Florida's database of sexual offenders and predators. His DNA, however, was not in a law enforcement database _ back then, convicts weren't required to give a genetic sample.
But Miami-Dade detectives, along with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations agents, revived the case by looking at publicly available DNA profiles of possible family members.
Authorities didn't disclose exactly what sites were used to scour genetic profiles. In other high profile cases, police officers have used a site called GEDMatch, which compiles genetic profiles voluntarily uploaded by users who use sites such as Ancestry.com to trace their lineage.
Police eventually zeroed in Koehler's son, Robert J. Koehler, whose DNA wound up in a police database because of an arrest in a domestic violence case in September. FDLE agents analyzed his full genetic profile.
"It was so similar, the offender had to be the man's father," Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said.
With the elder Robert Koehler now the suspect, detectives and agents began tailing Koehler in Brevard County, where he kept to himself at a suburban home on Rostock Circle. Around the neighborhood, he was known as a mechanically savvy handyman, always working on his motorcycle, fixing up cars or installing a sound system. He even constructed a windmill type contraption in his yard to generate power.
"He could fix anything," said one close acquaintance, who asked not to be named because of the notoriety of the case. "He was very intelligent."
The acquaintance said Koehler, who is divorced and father of two, traveled often while doing electric work on radio towers. He'd gotten into a bad motorcycle accident a few months ago. Koehler never shied away from the fact he was a registered sexual offender _ except he claimed the case was a result of a night of drinking gone wrong with someone he knew.
"He would talk about it and say, 'Stay away from drinking,' " the acquaintance said.
In Brevard County, police detectives tailed Koehler in public, getting samples of DNA "from objects he touched," according to an arrest warrant. Fernandez Rundle said they swabbed shopping carts and doors at a supermarket.
Investigators rushed those samples to the lab. They matched the profile of the Pillowcase Rapist. An arrest warrant was issued on Saturday for a rape that happened in December 1983 in Northwest Miami-Dade. The victim, shown a photo of Koehler from the 1990s, said she never gave him consent to sexually assault her.
When he was arrested, Koehler invoked his right to remain silent. He was charged with two counts of armed sexual battery.
"I am not guilty," he told a Brevard County judge on Tuesday.
By Wednesday afternoon, Koehler was moved down to a Miami-Dade jail, where a second search warrant was served for a full DNA swab. Miami-Dade's police lab worked throughout the night to compare the DNA to all the cases.
The results came back early Thursday morning.
"I want the victims to know, we will never forget," Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo Ramirez told reporters. "We are going to continue working this case."
