Ronald Macon was charged in October 1999 with the deaths of three women who were strangled in and near Englewood, on Chicago's South Side, earlier that year. He was 35 and already in Cook County Jail on an unrelated sexual-assault charge when DNA evidence tied him to the killings and he gave detectives a videotaped confession. He was later convicted of three murders and one criminal sexual assault, and in September 2003 he was sentenced to life in prison for the murders and 30 years for the rape.
His case became an exhibit in a national argument over DNA. A study the City of Chicago presented to the Illinois legislature in 2005 used him as one of its examples, arguing that a sample taken at his first felony arrest, in January 1998, would have identified him after the first killing and prevented the two that followed, along with a sexual assault. In 2013 the Supreme Court of the United States cited the Chicago study in Maryland v. King, the decision that upheld taking DNA from people arrested for serious crimes.
By the fall of 1999 the Chicago police were working a long list of killings and sexual assaults of women in and around Englewood. CBS News, drawing on reporting by the CBS radio station WBBM, described the case files as 16 murder cases in all, some of them going back to 1995. Detectives had biological evidence from the crimes, but for months it did not lead them to anyone. Few people in the surrounding neighborhoods knew the women, the report said, and fewer still were willing to talk to the police.
Macon was the first major arrest in the series. Even after he was charged, nine murders and three sexual assaults among the cases dating from 1995 remained unsolved, according to CBS News.
Angelnetta Peeples was 43. She was found on February 20, 1999. Police said she had been strangled and beaten.
Linda Soloman was 36. She was found on April 14, 1999, and police said she, too, had been strangled and beaten.
Rosezina Williams was 50. She was found on June 21, 1999, and police said she had been strangled.
Macon was taken into custody in August 1999, not for the killings but for a separate sex crime. He was held in Cook County Jail on that charge, with bond set at $1.25 million.
While he was in the jail, detectives compared his DNA with the evidence from the South Side killings, and it matched the three deaths of that year. Police Commander Frank Trigg, who briefed reporters on the case, said that once officers had been able to speak to Macon, "his status escalated to that of a suspect." Police said they obtained a videotaped confession to all three killings.
In October 1999 Macon was charged with three counts of murder. Authorities said at the time that he could face the death penalty if convicted, and that they might also bring a rape charge. He was scheduled for a court appearance that Tuesday, CBS News reported.
Macon had been arrested on felony charges three times in 1998, according to the City of Chicago study: for felony theft in January, for felony vandalism in July and for felony theft again in September. None of those arrests put a DNA sample on file. The study's whole case was that samples should be taken when a person is arrested on a felony charge, rather than waiting for a conviction.
The study fixed his first felony arrest at January 13, 1998. Had a DNA sample been taken that day, it said, a match could have been made to the DNA recovered after his first murder, in February 1999, and two later murders and one criminal sexual assault would have been prevented.
The study, titled "Chicago's Study on Preventable Crimes," was completed by the City of Chicago and presented to the Illinois legislature in 2005. Its cover carried the argument in two sentences: requiring DNA for felony arrests can solve and prevent violent crimes, and waiting for conviction can cost lives.
It examined the records of eight offenders, Macon among them, and concluded that 60 violent crimes, including 53 murders and rapes, could have been prevented if DNA had been collected when they were first arrested on felony charges. Between them, the study said, those offenders had 21 felony arrests before they were identified as the authors of violent crimes, and only seven of those earlier arrests were for violent offenses. Its recommendation was a law requiring DNA samples on felony arrest.
The study's figures traveled well beyond Illinois. In November 2013 the president of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association, testifying before the Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee in support of a bill to extend DNA collection to felony arrestees, cited the Chicago study's finding that 60 violent crimes, 53 of them murders and rapes, could have been prevented.
On June 3, 2013, the Supreme Court decided Maryland v. King by a vote of five to four. Alonzo King had been arrested in Wicomico County, Maryland, in April 2009 on first- and second-degree assault charges, and a cheek swab was taken under the state's DNA Collection Act, which allows samples from people charged with crimes of violence. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy held that when officers make an arrest supported by probable cause to hold a person for a serious offense, taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee's DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
In explaining why identifying arrestees quickly mattered, Kennedy cited studies from three jurisdictions that had found arrestees who went on to commit further crimes because DNA matches to earlier crimes had not been made. Chicago's 2005 study was one of them, listed alongside studies from Denver and Maryland. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the four dissenting justices.
Illinois law now allows DNA to be taken after a probable-cause hearing from people charged with certain offenses, among them first degree murder and criminal sexual assault, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Macon was convicted in Cook County of three murders and one criminal sexual assault, according to the City of Chicago study. In September 2003 he was sentenced to life in prison for the three murders and to 30 years for the rape.
In 1999 the authorities had said he could face the death penalty if convicted; the sentence imposed in 2003 was life in prison.
In October 1999 the authorities said they might add a rape charge to the murder case; he was later convicted of one count of criminal sexual assault and sentenced to 30 years for it. The August 1999 charge on which he was first held was described at the time as unrelated to the killings.
The study's claim that two of the murders could have been prevented is an argument made by the City of Chicago in support of a change in the law. It is the city's assessment of what might have happened, drawn from the dates of his arrests and of the crimes, and not a finding by any court.
January 13, 1998: Arrested for felony theft, his first felony arrest (City of Chicago study).
July 1998: Arrested for felony vandalism.
September 1998: Arrested for felony theft.
February 20, 1999: Angelnetta Peeples, 43, found strangled in Chicago.
April 14, 1999: Linda Soloman, 36, found strangled in Chicago.
June 21, 1999: Rosezina Williams, 50, found strangled in Chicago.
August 1999: Arrested on an unrelated sexual-assault charge and held in Cook County Jail on $1.25 million bond.
October 1999: DNA links him to the three deaths; police announce a videotaped confession; charged with three counts of murder.
September 2003: Sentenced to life in prison for three murders and 30 years for rape.
2005: The City of Chicago presents its study on preventable crimes, which uses his case, to the Illinois legislature.
June 3, 2013: The Supreme Court cites the Chicago study in Maryland v. King, upholding DNA collection from people arrested for serious offenses.