Roger Reddick convicted 23 years after sex assault of Cambridge teen
WOBURN - Decades after a 13-year-old girl was sexually assaulted in her childhood bedroom, a man has confessed to the crimes.
Roger Reddick Jr, 41, of Cambridge, pled guilty to three counts of Rape of a Child with Force. The charges stem from his actions in his hometown on October 18, 2000.
Investigators said Reddick broke into a home, and into the bedroom of a teenage girl. Once there Reddick covered the girl's mouth with his hand and ordered her to be quiet. Authorities said he repeated asked the girl how old she was but continued his assault despite her telling him she was just 13.
Reddick fled from the home and down the street before the girl's parents could find him. Police spent days looking for the man, now known to be Reddick.
The day of the assault, investigators recovered a jewelry box, men's boxers, and boots as evidence. In 2009, DNA technology had evolved enough to pull a latent print from the jewelry box. It came back as Reddick's, but police needed more corroborating evidence to charge him. It wasn't until 2022, that the Middlesex District Attorney's Cold Case Unit began to re-examine the case. New advances in DNA technology found DNA on the pair of boxers and the laces of the boots. He was arrested and charged in March of this year.
"This case is every parent's nightmare," Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan told WBZ-TV in an interview following the conviction. "You put your child to sleep in their bedroom next to you and the whole household goes to sleep and suddenly you are awoken by your child screaming for help."
"This was a case that was well investigated at the time," said Ryan "We just didn't have the technology then that allowed us to get the DNA results that we can get now 23 years later."
In court Tuesday, Reddick was sentenced to 10-12 years in prison with a three-year probation when he is released.
The victim no longer lives in Massachusetts and wishes to remain anonymous.
