A guy has been sentenced to 140 years in jail in California for brutally raping a 9-year-old child and a 32-year-old jogger over 20 years ago, officials revealed this week.
According to investigators, Kevin Konther attempted to accuse his identical twin brother of perpetrating the murders, as well as the molestation of a former girlfriend’s daughter.
Konther, 58, was sentenced on Friday in Orange County Superior Court, with a judge imposing the maximum penalty, according to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney.
According to the district attorney, Konther was found guilty by a jury in February 2023 of various criminal offenses related to the sexual assaults, including two counts of forceful rape and one count of a lewd and lascivious act with a juvenile.
“The relentless pursuit of justice by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office has ensured that another monster who preys on young girls and young women will never be free to jump out of the bushes again,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.
Konther and his twin brother were arrested in 2019 after a breakthrough in DNA testing led investigators from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office to both men, CBS Los Angeles reported at the time.
Authorities arrested the twins together, but detectives said they swiftly identified Konther as the suspect. He was arrested on allegations of rape, oral copulation with a kid under the age of 14, lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under the age of 14, and aggravated sexual assault, and was jailed on $1 million bond until his trial.
Two of the crimes occurred nearly three decades ago, but there were no significant developments in each case until advances in genetic genealogy enabled investigators to move their investigation forward in 2019.
The first incident occurred on October 21, 1995, when authorities allege Konther raped a 9-year-old girl in Lake Forest while she was walking home alone from a shopping excursion to buy school supplies. Authorities allege he seized the child and covered her mouth before dragging her down an embankment to a deserted park. The girl went home without clothes and told her mother about the rape.
Three years later, on June 2, 1998, authorities allege Konther raped a 32-year-old woman who was out for a jog in Mission Viejo. Konther, naked except for his shoes, came out of the bushes along her jogging track, dragging her down an embankment before attacking her and fleeing.
Detectives discovered the third crime after beginning to employ investigative genetic genealogy in 2018 in the hopes of identifying the perpetrator in the previous two rapes. During that period of the investigation, allegations surfaced accusing Konther of assaulting an ex-girlfriend’s daughter.
When Konther and his twin were arrested, “covertly recorded conversations” between them allowed authorities to identify him as the culprit, not his brother, the district attorney said, stressing that Konther had made damning admissions while his sibling was “shocked by the arrest.”