More than a decade after a woman was grabbed, threatened and forced into a car outside a Tamarac apartment complex, authorities say a Coral Springs man has finally been arrested in the case. Melvin Kendrick, 59, was taken into custody on Feb. 19 and is now facing charges in the 2015 abduction and sexual battery, according to court records.
Detectives with the Broward Sheriff’s Office assigned the investigation to the agency’s cold-case unit, which re-examined evidence in December 2024 and submitted samples to state databases. A familial DNA search generated a lead that eventually pointed to Kendrick, according to the Miami Herald. The victim met with deputies at the 3600 block of West Oakland Park Boulevard after escaping, and records show the database flagged an inmate investigators believed was a close family member of one of the attackers. Prosecutors filed charges after Kendrick was arrested in Coral Springs, and he appeared in court the next day.
How investigators cracked the case
Detectives combined conventional forensic testing with a familial-search strategy, a method that looks for close relatives in offender indexes when direct matches fail, before ordering confirmatory lab testing, according to state lab guidance. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement describes how the DNA Investigative Support Database feeds into CODIS to produce investigative leads, and Broward’s own DNA unit says similar testing has helped solve other cold sexual-assault and homicide investigations.
Charges, bond and what comes next
Kendrick is charged with sexual battery, a first-degree felony, and false imprisonment, a second-degree felony. Court records show a $55,000 bond and a GPS-monitoring order, according to NBC6 South Florida. He was booked on Feb. 19 and later released on bond while prosecutors prepare to present the case in Broward County Circuit Court…