By Sheila McLaughlin
The Cincinnati Enquirer

HAMILTON TWP. - A stolen cell phone and a suspect's call to a girlfriend in Kentucky were key to solving the home invasion rape three months ago of a 44-year-old mother here, police said Friday.

Township Sgt. Andy Roosa said the first break in the case came in early December when he received the woman's cell phone records that indicated a call was placed on the stolen phone about two hours after the attack. That led him to an address in Louisville, which turned out to be the residence of one suspect's girlfriend.

"It would have been hard if they didn't use the cell phone," Roosa said about solving the case.

Township police filed nearly two dozen charges, including rape, robbery, burglary and theft, against 17- and 18-year-old Louisville men on Friday after results of DNA tests linked the two to evidence left at the woman's home on Tabard Court.

They are being held in Louisville on other charges involving a rash of sometimes violent home invasion robberies in Louisville and Clark County, Ind., but will be returned eventually to Warren County, where police will seek to have them tried as adults.

The older suspect was days away from his 18th birthday when the Hamilton Township rape occurred, so both men are charged as juveniles. Police would not release their names.

In the Nov. 7 attack, the woman told police that two men wielding a gun and a knife ambushed her inside her garage as she left for the grocery store about 2 p.m. She was then dragged to a bedroom, where her captors bound her wrists with clear packaging tape, raped her and threatened to kill her if she didn't cooperate in the hour-long attack. They left her stashed in a closet while they ransacked the house, police said.

She freed herself and called police. Her stolen Buick Skylark was found abandoned about six miles away within hours of the attack.

Roosa said he interviewed eight to 10 people in Louisville to help him identify the suspects. The two were already incarcerated in Louisville and Indiana. The 18-year-old willingly gave up a DNA sample in an attempt to clear his name, Roosa said, and a court order was secured to obtain a sample from the 17-year-old three weeks ago.

"This is a red-letter day," Chief Gene Duvelius said. "Nobody's out of the reach of the law. Cell phones track more than you think they do."

Roosa did not know why the men were in the Cincinnati area Nov. 7, but he is convinced that they were familiar with the area because the woman's car was abandoned in a rural area and they were able to get a ride home. No other similar incidents were reported in surrounding counties that day, he said.

While the suspects are accused in Louisville and in Indiana with a series of home invasion robberies and burglaries, none of the incidents included sexual assaults, Chief Duvelius said. However, some of those victims were bound with tape and at least one was beaten with a baseball bat, he said.

E-mail smclaughlin@enquirer.com