The Broward State Attorney's Office has confirmed to the Pulp that sexual assault charges have been dropped against Steven Feagin -- the former Deerfield Beach High School football standout who went on to play running back at the University of Illinois -- in an alleged rape that took place on June 10, 2007.
Feagin, now 41 years old, was arrested in September 2008 after the Broward Sheriff's Office said the "accused serial rapist" had sexually assaulted one woman in Pompano Beach and three others in Illinois -- all of the women having blond hair and blue or green eyes.
"He might have thought he had gotten away with committing numerous rapes, but 15 years after assaulting his first victim, good police work and technology have landed him in jail," the sheriff's office said at the time of his arrest.
The investigation started in 2007, when detectives arrived at the scene of the first alleged rape.
"A woman was awakened when a man entered her bedroom and put a rag to her
face," the sheriff's office said. "She lost consciousness but awoke as a vicious rapist violated her in her home repeatedly before finally leaving through the front
door. Evidence from the scene was collected and a DNA profile was entered into a national Combined DNA Indexing System."
The next year, that DNA profile was matched to three cases in Illinois -- one from 1993 and two from 1995 -- in which women were reportedly raped at gunpoint.
After an investigation between the BSO's Sex Crimes Detective Eric Hendel and the Urbana Police Department in Illinois, they pointed the finger at Feagin:
A joint investigation between BSO and Illinois authorities narrowed the pool of possible suspects from over 30,000 people to 54 possible suspects. Out of those, only one was in the area of incidents in Illinois and in the area of Pompano Beach in 2007...
The investigation revealed that 38-year-old Steven Feagin either lived in the same apartment complex or just blocks away in all 4 of the crime scenes. One of the victims also helped detectives put together a composite sketch, which had striking similarities to a 1991 picture of Feagin.
On September 24, 2008, Det. Hendel obtained a search warrant for a DNA swab of Feagin. This past Monday (9/29/08), it was confirmed Feagin's DNA matched the samples obtained from the Pompano Beach crime scene.
Feagin was currently residing in Deerfield Beach and recently divorced a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes.
Broward State Attorney's Office spokesman Ron Ishoy tells us that the charges were dropped today in front of Broward Circuit Court Judge Ilona Holmes but that a "close-out memo explaining our reasons has not been completed."
As of now, Feagin still faces charges in the Illinois cases, and we're waiting on that memo to be completed, so stay tuned to the Pulp for updates.
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