“Pillowcase Rapist’s” Identity Finally Found as Case Connections Cross County Lines
In 1980s Florida, terror wracked the Broward and Miami-Dade Counties. For years, a rapist traveled around both communities, infiltrating women’s homes and raping them at knifepoint. He concealed his identity through the use of a pillowcase, earning his name as the “Pillowcase Rapist,” and throughout this period, over 40 women were raped by this perpetrator. This rapist’s attacks were so prevalent in the news cycle that a task force specifically created to investigate sex crimes had to be created according to The Guardian. Despite the attention given to these cases and the urgency in trying to find the man responsible, the truth would be left in mystery for forty years.
It wasn’t until 2019 when cold-case detective Kami Floyd took another look at the case and eventually found the information that solved it after all these years. In that year, the sergeant read an article discussing the details of six rapes in Broward County and was inspired to go back and learn more about the case from those who worked on it originally. Because of extremely meticulous records kept by the original detectives, Floyd was able to find a running pattern throughout the over 500 boxes of evidence and files discussing the case, connecting them through the similar use of a specific item.
The common traits that she found among the cases spelled out a clear MO. According to the Washington Post, the perpetrator was one who would stalk his victims weeks in advance, learning their habits and routines. With this knowledge, he would know when they were going to bed or asleep and would break-in at that time when he would threaten the women’s lives, tie them up, and then rape them. Uniquely, he would use a pillowcase either over his face or put it over the victim’s, to conceal his identity. Once he was finished, he would take some valuables from the victim and leave into the night.
While looking through the case files, she got a warrant to run a DNA search on what was collected in the Broward cases, to see if any newly convicted criminals could have been the perpetrator those years ago and found a match. Robert Eugene Koehler (62) matched the samples taken from those crimes. Koehler, who according to The Guardian was registered as a sex offender in 1991 for sexual battery, was old enough to be able to commit the 80s murders and showed a previous history. Quickly, Broward County police tried to charge and arrest Koehler for the six rapes, but they came across a roadblock they were not anticipating.
Koehler, at the time of their arrest, was already incarcerated in Miami-Dade for the rapes he had committed there in 1984-1985. He was found in Miami-Dade after his son was arrested in 2019 on felony domestic violence charges, and as his DNA went into the database, it triggered a familial match from the samples found in their 1980s cases, and the arrest was underway. When trying to bring him to justice for the numerous rapes they found him connected to, the DA chose to only charge him for one out of the dozens of cases in order to secure an easy conviction, choosing the 1983 case where he stabbed his victim in the abdomen according to the Washington Post.
The case of the Pillowcase Rapist was one that has loomed over the South Florida community for decades. With thousands of leads, hundreds of possible suspects, and even creating an entirely new section of the police, it took over 40 years for new eyes to land on the case and new technology to help find the truth about the perpetrator. Now, as Floyd and the Broward County officials work to prepare their own case against Koehler, they are reinterviewing victims to gain a better understanding of their stories, bringing this traumatic event back into their lives and the lives of some of their families. For these victims, after all these years, they are now just looking for the justice they deserve.
