AKRON, Ohio — The trial for a previously convicted Akron rapist began Monday morning in the Summit County Court of Pleas for a sexual assault case from 14 years ago.
Derrick Fischer, 53, is charged with two counts of rape (F1.) Police said Fischer's DNA matched to a sexual assault kit from a 2010 Barberton case.
Fischer is already behind bars. He was convicted in 2016 on drug and domestic violence charges. He was also convicted of another rape in Akron in 1992.
Expired Justice
News 5 first told you about Fischer in an exclusive investigation, “Expired Justice," which revealed how Ohio law allows some rapists to walk free.
RELATED: Despite DNA evidence, statute of limitations prevents prosecution of Ohio rape cases
In 2019, Mary Ellen Bryan, an Akron mother, told us DNA from her rape kit matched Fischer. But he was never arrested, charged, or prosecuted for the 1991 crime.
For Bryan, justice had expired.
Like most states, Ohio has a statute of limitations for rape. The law creates a clock. It starts when the crime is committed and runs out after 25 years.
Despite DNA evidence in Bryan’s case, by the time it was finally tested, it was too late.
“When my kit was tested, they found a DNA match that came through CODIS [the Combined DNA Index System]. And that match was that it was a person named Derrick Fischer," Bryan said.
But when Mary Ellen was attacked, Ohio’s statute of limitations was only 20 years.
Prosecutors explained to her that on June 29, 2011, her window to receive justice had closed.
“There was a violent crime where my children were home,” Bryan told News 5 in 2019. ”And he got away with it."
According to the Ohio Attorney General’s office, Bryan’s case was one of 61 cases where no one can ever be prosecuted, despite a DNA match discovered during the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, which was started in 2012 by then-Attorney General Mike DeWine to DNA test the state’s backlog of sexual assault kits.
