Suspect arrested in 1990 murders of man and sister at DeKalb home

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A horrific crime that took the lives of a brother and sister in 1990 in DeKalb County appears to have finally been solved.

On Thursday, June 6, Kenneth P Perry, of Loganville, was booked into the DeKalb County Jail and charged with two counts of murder and one count of rape.

Perry's arrest warrants, which 11Alive obtained Friday, are largely redacted, including the crime location and victims.

However, the arrest warrants provide details of the double homicide that occurred on Sunday, July 15, 1990.

The arrest warrants allege that between midnight and just after 4 a.m., the man who was killed, who is not identified, took Perry home, where his sister also resided.

During that four-hour period, the prosecutor's office says Perry stabbed the man, killing him inside the home.

The prosecutor's office later claimed Perry entered the man's sister's bedroom, where he put a pillow over her head, raped her and stabbed her multiple times.

The warrant says she tried to call 911 for help, but Perry “pulled the heartstrings out of the wall.”

She died two weeks after the brutal attack.

It would be years — 22 years, in fact, before the victim's sexual assault kit could be tested.

In a previous cold case sexual assault case, DeKalb County Prosecutor Shery Boston explained that before 1998, investigators could only test DNA evidence if they had a suspect to compare the samples to. As a result, many rape kits dating from before 1999 were not tested and were kept at the GBI.

Perry's arrest warrant states that in 2022, his alleged victim's sexual assault kit was tested and produced a male DNA profile.

In 2024, the warrant says the prosecutor's office uploaded the DNA profile to a national database. Their strategy worked because they got DNA detected more than 700 miles away in Detroit.

Perry's arrest warrant states that the DNA analysis was related to an unsolved sexual assault case and that the accused suspect was Perry.

It would take 33 years after the alleged crime for the prosecutor's office to present its evidence before a judge.

On June 5, his arrest warrants were signed and the following afternoon, June 6, Perry was arrested by the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office.

On June 7, Perry appeared before a magistrate judge who, due to the seriousness of the charges against him, was unable to set bail. His next appearance will take place in the coming weeks before a Superior Court judge.