Daughter’s call, discarded coffee cup help identify man in 35-year-old Cincinnati rape case

CINCINNATI —

For 35 years, Dana Beatty waited to learn the identity of the masked man who attacked her inside her Cincinnati condominium.

Editor’s note: This story discusses sexual violence and may be difficult for some readers.

The answer would ultimately come through advances in DNA technology, a phone call from Beatty’s daughter and a discarded Starbucks cup marked with one name: “Fred.”

On Aug. 1, 1989, Beatty—then 29 and working for IBM—returned to her condominium in Cincinnati’s Columbia-Tusculum neighborhood. She noticed that her door was unlocked and a bathroom light was on.

A masked man dressed head to toe in black then emerged from her kitchen.

“He had a butcher knife, and he immediately grabbed me, put the knife to my neck, and I screamed,” Beatty recalled. “He put it closer and said, ‘Shhh,’ which was the only word he ever spoke the entire time.”

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