Curtis Hinton - Repeat Sex Offender - Tied to unsolved rape by DNA

Lafourche Parish sheriff’s deputies have arrested a registered sex offender on parole on a single count of forcible rape after the Louisiana State Police Crime Lab linked his DNA to an unsolved, three-year-old rape, deputies said.

Curtis Hinton, 55, 160 Nora T. Lane, Thibodaux, was the stranger a woman said gave her a ride while she was walking in rural northern Lafourche Parish in November 2006, deputies said in a statement Thursday.

The stranger drove her to a wooded area and raped her but she managed to run away and cry out for help, deputies said.

Deputies said they submitted evidence from the scene to the state crime lab and DNA evidence results returned in late July pointed to Hinton.

Sheriff’s detectives reopened the case, interviewed the victim again and then obtained arrest and search warrants for a swab of Hinton’s DNA, deputies said. Hinton has an extensive criminal history dating back to 1971.

In 1986, Hinton was sentenced to 40 years in prison on charges of attempted second-degree murder and aggravated crime against nature in a 1985 incident in St. Mary Parish, said Sgt. Lesley Hill Peters, sheriff’s spokeswoman.

Hinton was granted mandatory supervised release for good time served on June 30, 2005, said Mark DeLaune, district manager for Thibodaux district of state Probation and Parole.

DeLaune said if Hinton is convicted on the latest charge, he must serve out the remainder of his sentence from the 1986 conviction.

Hinton remained in Lafourche Parish Detention Center in Thibodaux on a $500,000 bond and a probation and parole hold.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte