WESTOVER — According to information provided by the Westover Police Department, the victim in a 24-year-old sexual assault case believed her attacker played football for West Virginia University.
The man charged with that crime, Tyron Jermaine “T.J.” Walker, 50, was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force in Waterbury, Connecticut, earlier this year and extradited to West Virginia, where he’s being held in the North Central Regional Jail.
According to the incident report, a 23-year-old female arrived at WVU Hospital on May 23, 2000, reporting she had been raped.
A sexual assault examination kit was completed, and law enforcement was contacted.
The report states that the victim and some friends went out together and then returned to her Westover apartment with other individuals to play cards. One of the males that returned to her home was the man she identified as “T.J.”
According to the report, the victim became ill and went to bed. She later woke “due to the T.J. subject being on top of her while she was in her bed.”
Witness statements corroborated her claims, and bodily fluid located on the victim was included in the sexual assault kit.
Westover Police Deputy Chief Scott Carl, who was not with the department at the time of the incident, said the initial investigators were not able to identify a suspect, but noted the victim told police she believed “T.J.” played football for the Mountaineers.
“There was just nothing we could do. We had no idea who he was,” he said.
When asked about a T.J. Walker who, according to publicly available records, recorded four tackles in WVU’s 1995 season and saw playing time as a running back in a total of five games in the 1996 and 1997 seasons, Carl said he couldn’t confirm if it was the same person.
“I think in the original report 23 years ago the victim thought he was a football player but they only knew him by T.J.,” he said.
What can be confirmed is that WVUstats.com lists T.J. Walker as a 6-foot tall running back from Ansonia, Connecticut, who was born on July 23.
According to the West Virginia Division of Corrections, Tyron Jermaine Walker is 6 feet tall and was born on July 23, 1974. Waterbury, where Walker was arrested, is 16 miles from Ansonia.
During the initial investigation, law enforcement did ultimately learn the suspect’s full name but he could not be located and the investigation went cold.
In December 2020, the West Virginia Crime Laboratory connected DNA from the Westover case to an offender from the California State DNA Database, who was also the suspect in a sexual assault case in Montana.
Subsequent investigation by Detective Zachary Fecsko of the Westover Police Department resulted in an arrest warrant for Walker on June 30, 2023.
U.S. Marshals and the Waterbury Police Department took Walker into custody on July 23 of this year.
He’s being held on one felony charge of 2nd degree sexual assault, which carries a penalty of 10 to 25 years in prison and/or a fine of up to $10,000.
