Man gets 10 to 12 in state prison for raping 13-year-old girl in Cambridge housebreak in 2000

A Cambridge man pleaded guilty today to three counts of rape of a child with force for an attack in a girl's bedroom that went unsolved for more than two decades, the Middlesex County District Attorney's office and Cambridge Police announced today.

A Middlesex Superior Court Judge sentenced Roger Reddick, 41, of Cambridge, to 10 to 12 years in state prison. The DA's office says Reddick still lived less than a half mile from the home he broke into in October, 2000.

According to the DA's office Reddick found the girl after breaking into her house:

In the early morning hours of October 18, 2000, a male intruder entered the victim’s home in Cambridge, where she lived with her mother and father. When he reached her second-floor bedroom, he rushed to the victim’s bed, covered her mouth with his hand, and ordered her to be quiet. The intruder repeatedly sexually assaulted her. During the attack, he specifically asked the victim how old she was, and she told him truthfully that she was only thirteen. When she saw an opportunity to escape, the victim ran out of her bedroom and screamed for help. The intruder followed her out of the bedroom, then ran past her down a flight of stairs and out of the house and into the street.

Police found a "latent fingerprint" on a jewelry box at the scene. In 2009, the DA's office says, "police were able to identify that latent print as having been left by the left middle finger of Roger Reddick, Jr. but did not have sufficient corroborating evidence to charge him at that point."

But in September, 2022, the DA's office re-opened the case and State Police crime-lab technicians were able to use advances in DNA sensing technology to develop a DNA record from a pair of green patterned men’s boxer shorts police had initially found at the foot of the girl's bed and on a pair of black work boots left at the bottom of the stairs. Fed into a national DNA database, the records matched Reddick's, the DA's office says.

Reddick was arrested March 30 of this year.

Following Reddick’s arrest, the District Attorney’s office obtained a court order for a buccal swab from Reddick for comparison purposes. Using that DNA, the State Police Crime Laboratory was able to conclusively link Reddick to DNA recovered from the green boxer shorts; to a swab taken from the victim at the time of the crime; and to the tongue and laces of the black work boots.