NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — It took 32 years, four months and 20 days, according to the prosecutor’s closing statement, but the man who broke into a Norfolk woman’s apartment with a knife, threatened her children and raped her in her own bed in May 1992 finally stands convicted.
Shortly before 4 p.m. following about two hours of deliberation, the judge quickly read the jury’s verdict: guilty on both counts.
Vernon Gay, 56, was direct-indicted on charges of rape and statutory burglary with a deadly weapon in November 2023. After the guilty verdict, Judge Jamilah D. LeCruise set his sentencing hearing for Dec. 20.
The incident occurred before state forensic scientists could use DNA evidence, and before the existence of the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS. The case was the first case in Virginia under the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, or SAKI to go to trial and reach a conviction through a jury trial.
“It wasn’t until there was a DNA match between the perpetrator, whom our survivor could never identify, and the man who went on trial today, that the police were able to crack the case,” Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi told 10 On Your Side after the verdict.