RICHMOND, VIRGINIA – Prosecutors say a former professional boxer implicated in a decades-old rape case will not face trial because he has died.
Henrico County prosecutors tell the Richmond Times-Dispatch they learned last month that 70-year-old John Henry Howard Jr. had died at the Piedmont Geriatric Hospital in Burkeville.
Howard was arrested in 2008 after DNA preserved from the 1974 rape of an 81-year-old Sandston woman linked him to the assault. He was arrested but ruled incompetent to assist in his defense, so he was civilly committed to the Piedmont facility.
