Nearly 40 years after she was attacked in her apartment, a Miami-Dade woman provided testimony Thursday that could help put the accused "pillowcase rapist" behind bars for life.
Her testimony came during the first day of the Miami-Dade trial of Robert Koehler, the man prosecutors suspect is responsible for numerous sexual assaults of women in South Florida during the 1980s.
The "pillowcase rapist" was so named because he used a pillowcase or other fabric to cover the faces of his victims, usually after he broke into an apartment or town home. The assaults were often committed at knifepoint, authorities said.
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The trial that began Thursday involves only one case, the December 1983 rape of a then-25-year-old woman who was living on the ground floor of an apartment building near Miami International Airport.
Now 65 and retired, the woman detailed the most terrifying night of her life while sitting just a few yards away from Koehler, now 63.
She said she was home alone and had just gotten out of the shower when she was suddenly attacked.
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"I screamed," the woman said. "[He said] shut up, he covered my mouth and he put a sharp object."
The woman said the intruder threw her on her bed, put a blanket over her head and raped her.
At one point, she said she tried to get a peek at the man but couldn't get a good look at his face.
"He hit me in the face, broke my lip," she said.
Authorities said the case had gone cold until advancements in DNA testing led them to Koehler.
According to an arrest warrant, investigators obtained a DNA sample from Koehler's son following an unrelated arrest. That sample was linked to one of the assaults, leading detectives to Brevard County where they followed Koehler to obtain DNA samples from objects he touched.
Koehler was eventually arrested in January 2020 after detectives found a match.
It turned out Koehler was convicted in a 1990 rape in Palm Beach County and sentenced to probation, which he later violated and served 120 days in jail.
But that case was never linked to the series of assaults in Miami and elsewhere in South Florida. Authorities said that was mainly because DNA samples were not yet mandatory.
Koehler could potentially be linked to dozens of cases in Miami-Dade, but prosecutors previously said it will take time to locate victims and determine if there is enough evidence to prosecute all of the cases.
More than two years after his arrest in the Miami-Dade case, the Broward Sheriff's Office announced Koehler would be charged in at least six sexual assault cases in the county.
