An Arizona man who previously lived in the Cleveland area has been extradited back to Northeast Ohio to face a judge for cold case rape from 1997.
Samuel W. Legg, III, 50, has addresses in Tucson, Vail and elsewhere in southeastern Arizona over the past several years. He was recently taken into custody and flown back to Ohio ahead of an arraignment scheduled for Thursday morning in Medina County Common Pleas Court.
Legg was indicted last month. He has been charged with two first-degree felony counts of rape.
Legg is currently being held in lieu of a $1 million bond.
Authorities say the rape case happened in 1997 and up until recently, went unsolved. Legg, who was a truck driver at that time, was linked through DNA to the rape as well as multiple homicide cases, according to the Ohio Attorney General's Office.
The specifics regarding the homicide cases have not been released. Legg has not been charged in connection with those cases.
“This case illustrates that the advancements in science, particularly with DNA testing, in conjunction with the increasing education of law enforcement in learning how to apply these advancements in the field has allowed us to find justice for victims of crime where it may have been lost in the past,” Medina County Prosecutor Forrest Thompson said.
