MIAMI (WSVN) - There was more tough testimony in the case of man who prosecutors are calling the “Pillowcase Rapist.” He is accused of assaulting dozens of women.
Sixty-three-year-old Robert Koehler is on trial for a rape that was part of a series of rapes in the 1980s, and whose DNA, prosecutors said, is linked to a particular case.
During the fourth day of testimony Tuesday, a retired Miami-Dade Police detective, who worked with the Sexual Battery Unit back in the ’80s, took the stand.
He was asked about his knowledge of police corruption during that time and his role in the investigation of the “Pillowcase Rapist.”
The corruption questions where brought up by the prosecution a day after Koehler took the stand and told the jury he was innocent, abducted, kidnapped and framed by corrupt police.
“First thing I got was terrific pain I was in. I was naked in some kind of chair. I had a hood over my head. I received [electrical] shocks over and over, felt the cocking of the mechanism with the gun right here to my temple,” Koehler said while on the stand.
Also taking the stand Tuesday morning, was an expert on fingerprints who worked with MDPD detectives.
After the defense rested its case, the prosecution wanted to call more witnesses. The defense argued against it.
“We agreed that that was the DNA that was found, that it is in fact his DNA,” a defense attorney said, “the evidence we put forward to explain how that DNA got there, so it’s not that we’re saying this isn’t his DNA, he has nothing to do with this case. Of course he’s linked to this case via DNA. The question becomes how did it get there?”
“If that was the plot to frame this defendant for a crime that happened in 1983, but they were going to defer doing that until the year 2020, that’s ridiculous,” said a prosecutor.
More witnesses were allowed to take the stand, which included those who played a role in Koehler’s 2020 arrest, but were not even in law enforcement back in the 1980s, when the string of rapes happened.
Both sides have rested with closing arguments set to begin Wednesday.
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