Connecticut rapist nabbed in Florida after 44 years on the lam and assuming dead child's identity
Douglas Bennett, 76, was a former drama department instructor at Mount Holyoke College
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Florida federal prosecutors have announced the capture of a fugitive Connecticut rapist after he went on the lam 44 years ago and who they say assumed the identity of a 5-year-old who died in 1945.
Douglas Bennett, 76, a former drama department instructor at Mount Holyoke College, the prestigious private liberal arts college for women, was taken into custody in Clearwater, Fla., where he had been living for years.
Bennett disappeared before he was due to turn himself in to begin serving a prision sentence in the brutal rape of a 22-year-old woman in Wethersfield, Conn., prosecutors said. He had been sentenced nine to 18 years behind bars after his trial and conviction.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Mugshot for Douglas Bennett, 76. (Pinellas County Sheriff's Office )
“A fingerprint comparison confirmed that Bennett was the same person convicted in Connecticut in 1975,” Tampa federal prosecutors said in a news release Thursday.
His undoing came when he reapplied for a passport in the name of the child who had died in Holyoke, Mass., 75 years ago, according to court papers.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}FUGITIVE WANTED IN GEORGIA SHERIFF'S DEPUTY SHOOTING CAPTURED
A jury found Bennett guilty of raping a woman after he and an accomplice abducted her from her home. The accomplice was never caught. Police said Bennett broke into the home looking for the woman’s father.
Fox 13 Tampa reported interviewing Vince Stegura who said he lived next door to Bennett and knew him as a sailor who traveled the world.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“It’s very scary, you know, because we were none the wiser,” Stegura told the station. “He was older, though, so he was less of a threat, I think, but it’s scary that justice could have been served a long time ago.”