CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A convicted rapist was sentenced to 100 years in prison in connection with a nearly 32-year-old sexual assault at a Charlotte hotel.
According to the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office, 60-year-old Jerry Oglesby was found guilty by a jury for a rape committed on Thanksgiving Day in 1985. Oglesby was tried for second-degree rape, second-degree sex offense, common law robbery, and felony breaking or entering in connection with the assault. He was handed down the maximum sentence by the judge.
Prosecutors say that on Thanksgiving Day 1985, the victim went to a Charlotte hotel where she had been hired as a plumbing contractor to refurbish the hotel’s bathtubs. On her way to one of the rooms, investigators say she passed a man walking in the other direction in the hallway. A short while later, the man walked into the room, grabbed her, and sexually assaulted her. The suspect then took $20 from her jeans before running from the room.
Detectives were unable to identify Oglesby as a suspect at the time, but cold case investigators reopened the case decades later and discovered his DNA. He was arrested in Kentucky in 2014. Police said Oglesby’s DNA was entered into the national registry following his conviction for a rape committed in South Carolina nine months after the Charlotte attack.
Both victims testified in court against Oglesby, officials said.
