Recent DNA testing links a man to three Tucker-area cold cases, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said, adding he could be responsible for additional or unreported crimes.
Jamal Toliaferro, 45, was arrested and charged in multiple previously unsolved crimes, including two sexual assaults and a kidnapping, dating as far back as 2014, Boston said Wednesday.
“We are here today because of advancements in science and investigative technology and the relentless pursuit of justice by the DeKalb County Cold Case Task Force,” she said. “This case is a shining example of what we can accomplish when law enforcement agencies work together to solve crimes.”
Boston said officials have notified survivors from cases in 2014, 2019 and 2024 of the major investigative development. “We believe it is possible that there are more victims out there,” she added.
Toliaferro faces at least 18 charges in connection to the three cold cases and a July homicide that investigators said shared similar hallmarks of the earlier incidents.
He was booked in the DeKalb County Jail in July and is awaiting trial. He does not yet have an attorney listed in court records.
Boston said the charges followed years of investigative work from the DeKalb Cold Case Task Force, using advanced technology in DNA and genealogy mapping in cold cases. The DNA profile for the unknown perpetrator in three cold cases was linked to Toliaferro after his arrest in a July homicide.
DeKalb officials said they’ve connected the man to crimes in the area as long ago as Christmas Eve 2014, when a 54-year-old woman reported she was ambushed and sexually assaulted by a masked man in her Evelyn Street garage.
About a mile from there in January 2019, authorities said a 35-year-old woman reported a similar attack, saying a masked man sexually assaulted her at an apartment complex off of Northlake Parkway.
And in March 2024, a 67-year-old woman told officials she was kidnapped by a masked man who bound her in her car and drove her around as he tried to use her bank cards at ATMs. Authorities said she was also cut and burned with a lighter before being released near a fire station, where she went to get help. It was less than a mile from the location of the 2014 attack.
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
The GBI used DNA collected at each incident to create a profile of an unidentified man and link the two earliest incidents in CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System, a database used by law enforcement across the country, Boston said.
After the reported kidnapping case, investigators found a bag left behind and developed a DNA profile that they determined in September 2025 was the same perpetrator as the profile.
The GBI and the DeKalb investigators, using funds from a U.S. Department of Justice grant, submitted the unknown DNA for additional testing to create an advanced profile that could identify individuals related to the person whose sample they had collected, a process called forensic investigative genetic genealogy.
Shortly after that profile was created earlier this year, police responded to a fatal stabbing on Evelyn Street — on the same block where the 2014 sexual assault took place, officials said. They found Toliaferro, whom they arrested and charged with malice murder in the death of Kenyon Jeffries, 30.
Similarities in that stabbing and the other incidents, and with the location being so close, led investigators to get a warrant to compare his DNA with the previously created profile.
It was a match, prosecutors say.
Even though investigators had the perpetrator’s DNA while investigating the cold cases, they weren’t able to connect it to Toliaferro until this summer when they suspected a connection to the prior incidents.
He had previously been arrested, but he had not been convicted of a felony, which is a requirement for standard DNA collection in Georgia. That means a sample positively linked to him had not been added to the CODIS database before this summer, the DA’s office said.
Unlike many other states, Georgia does not allow investigators to collect DNA upon arrest — an issue long debated by state lawmakers, including earlier this year. Senate Bill 29 was proposed in 2025 to allow law enforcement to collect DNA of those suspected of committing violent felonies upon arrest, instead of waiting until their conviction. It did not pass into law.
Credit: Ben Hendren
Credit: Ben Hendren
Identities of the victims in the assault and kidnapping cases were not released by the DA’s office.
Boston said the work of the cold case task force can “give survivors a sense of peace, and hopefully closure, once we prosecute the case.”
“Imagine walking around for decades, and you’ve been a victim of a crime like this,” Boston said. “Because that person hasn’t been identified, you have no idea if they’re coming back, if they’re going to show up, if they’re going to commit another crime against you.”
Those with information about Toliaferro can contact the DeKalb County DA’s Office tip line at 404-371-2444, officials said.
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