LANSING, Mich. — After a week-long trial, Marcelin Nikubwayo was found guilty of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for a 2013 rape of a Michigan State University student.
In May 2013, during graduation week, an MSU student from Chicago went to a bar to celebrate her pending graduation. That evening, the woman left the bar with a man she did not know. The man, driving her vehicle, drove to a dark parking lot in Lansing Township and then raped the woman.
During this time, the man stated to the woman that he was a police officer.
The student then managed to escape the vehicle, leaving her belongings behind. The man fled the location, leaving the student alone in the parking lot. She contacted her out-of-town roommate, who called 911 on the woman's behalf. The student said she was scared that if the man was a police officer he would find out her location and come for her if she called 911.
The woman was escorted to Sparrow Hospital by Lansing Township police officers where a sexual assault nurse conducted a forensic exam, recovering DNA of the man responsible for the rape. The DNA was then entered in to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).
No DNA matched the profile, and the case sat dormant until 2019 when the rape of a 14-year-old Clinton County girl was reported to authorities.
According to the family of the 14-year-old girl, she had been raped by a man close to the family in August 2012, when she was 7-years-old. The family did not know of the incident until the 14-year-old disclosed the rape to her family in September 2019.
The rape suspect of the 14-year-old-girl was identified as Marcelin Nikubwayo. When a sample of his DNA was taken by police, it was entered into CODIS and matched with the DNA of the 2013 incident.
Over the next three years, Lansing Township Police, the Ingham County Prosecutor's office, the MSU Center for Survivors and the Special Victims Unit and the Chicago Police Department worked together to investigate the incident that occurred in Lansing Township.
In 2021, a warrant for Nikubwayo's arrest was issued, charging him with criminal sexual conduct in the third degree.
In 2021, a preliminary exam was held in the 55th District Court where the MSU student and other witnesses testified. The charge against Nikubwayo was amended to to criminal sexual conduct in the first degree.
COVID-19 delays led to the trial being moved to May 5, 2023. On May 12, Nikubwayo was found guilty of the rape of the MSU student.
The criminal case against Nikubwayo in the rape of the 7-year-old girl in Clinton County was dismissed due to unknown reasons.
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