MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — A jury found 66-year-old Robert Koehler, a convicted felon known as the pillowcase rapist, guilty of all counts on Monday in Miami-Dade County.
A rape victim testified that she was 22 when Koehler broke into her townhouse in 1984, in southwest Miami-Dade, put a knife to her neck, threatened to kill her, and covered her face with a fabric.
Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge David Young presided over the four-day trial, and the jury deliberated for about 90 minutes before announcing the guilty verdict.
DNA EVIDENCE
Koehler got married to Laurie Savage and had a son they named Robert, on Jan. 23, 1990, and a daughter named Brandy, on March 21, 1991. Koehler and Savage got divorced, and he had a second daughter with another woman named Emma, records show.
After a sexual battery conviction in Palm Beach County, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement registered Koehler as a sex offender on Oct. 31, 1991.
Koehler son’s arrest and DNA on a separate case provided important clues in 2020 that helped detectives solve cases in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
Miami-Dade corrections booked Koehler on Jan. 22, 2020, at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, and later held him without bond at the Metrowest Detention Center.
Koehler was already behind bars when prosecutors filed the case against him on Feb. 28, 2023, for the 1984 rape in Miami-Dade. He pleaded not guilty to two counts of armed sexual battery, armed kidnapping, and armed burglary.
Court records show DNA evidence from April 20, 1999, a DNA report generated on Aug. 2, 2023, and latent fingerprint analysis were also part of the evidence in the 1984 case.
Koehler was convicted of raping a 25-year-old woman on Dec. 28, 1983, sentenced to 17 years in prison on March 16, 2023, and booked in a Florida prison on Jan. 9, before prosecutors filed a new 1983 case against him earlier this year.
The 1983 case is pending. Koehler’s sentencing on his latest conviction in Miami-Dade is Nov. 24.
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