73-year-old man sentenced to life for rapes of 5 Baltimore County women in 1970s, 1980s

A man who was arrested in 2023 after DNA evidence linked him to a series of rapes in Baltimore County in the 1970s and 1980s was found guilty Monday.

James Shipe Sr., 73, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of rape, sex offense and burglary charges.

Police said Shipe raped five women between 1978 and 1986 in Cockeysville, Maryland.

Charging documents show the first rape happened in September 1978, when Shipe broke into a woman's apartment. He was later convicted of raping four other women in separate apartment units in December 1978, September 1982, May 1986 and September 1986.

Police said all five rapes occurred within a one-mile radius of one another.

Shipe was identified as a suspect after investigators reviewed historical police records, including victim statements and arrest records.

On June 13, 2023, investigators obtained search and seizure warrants to collect DNA from Shipe. The sample was sent to the Baltimore County Forensics Unit for analysis.

According to detectives, forensic evidence collected through the Greater Baltimore Medical Center Slide Project was compared with a DNA swab from Shipe and produced a match.

The GBMC Slide Project is a collection of forensic evidence from sexual assault survivors dating back to the 1970s. The evidence was collected by Dr. Rudiger Breitenecker, a former emergency department physician at GBMC.

The evidence was preserved on microscope slides and stored for safekeeping.