They were young girls and women, walking to school, home, or a friend’s house in Detroit when they were abducted at gunpoint and raped more than two decades ago.
The suspect, it turns out, is Benjamin Wagner — a Detroit Police sergeant who retired in 2017 and is now facing life in prison on numerous kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct charges.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced Wednesday that Benjamin Wagner, 68, faces 14 felony counts tied to five sexual assaults between 1999 and 2003 on Detroit’s northwest side.
“The alleged facts in this case are disturbing, unsettling and infuriating,” Worthy said during the news conference. “The deplorable fact in this case is that the person that we are charging today has led a double life as a law enforcement officer and a serial rapist.”
Authorities allege Wagner targeted girls and young women between the ages of 15 and 23, approaching them while they were walking and then forcing them at gunpoint into secluded areas where he sexually assaulted them.
Wagner, who joined DPD in 1989 and retired in 2017, was arrested Tuesday in Greenville, N.C. He is expected to be returned to Michigan for arraignment in 36th District Court next week.
The charges are tied directly to sexual assault kits collected at the time of the attacks. But the evidence sat untested for years as part of a backlog that once exceeded 11,000 kits in Detroit.
“This case is part and parcel of all the work that has been done,” Worthy said, referring to her office’s long-running effort to process the kits.
Detroit’s rape kit backlog came to light in 2009, when more than 11,000 untested kits were discovered in a DPD storage facility. The kits dated back decades, representing thousands of sexual assault cases that were never fully investigated.
At the time, advocates and investigators described the backlog as one of the largest in the country and an embarrassing example of how sexual assault cases were historically mishandled.
Worthy launched a sweeping initiative to test every kit and reinvestigate the cases, partnering with the Michigan State Police, the FBI, and local law enforcement agencies. The effort eventually became known as the Wayne County Sexual Assault Kit Task Force.
It took nearly a decade just to test all of the kits.
“It took eight years, maybe nine years to even get them all tested,” Worthy said.
From there, investigators began building cases, first prioritizing those nearing the statute of limitations, then working backward through older assaults, Worthy said.
The effort has led to hundreds of prosecutions and convictions, many involving serial offenders identified through DNA evidence uploaded to national databases.
In this case, all five victims had sexual assault kits collected at the time of the attacks, which ultimately helped link Wagner to the crimes, Worthy said.
Detroit Police Chief James White said the case highlights both the severity of the allegations and the persistence required to solve cold cases.
“Cold cases are oftentimes some of the most difficult cases to solve,” White said. “They require years of persistent, careful review of evidence, and most importantly, an unwavering commitment to justice.”
He added that Wagner’s alleged actions “do not represent the integrity and the values” of the department.
Worthy said the case involved multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Detroit police, the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, Michigan State Police, and the FBI.
“This case is illustrative of a multi-year journey to justice,” Worthy said. “Collaboration, patience, determination, and a focus on our survivors was key here. We are a victim-centered, trauma-informed, and offender-focused office.”
Worthy said the investigation remains ongoing and urged anyone who may have been assaulted by Wagner to come forward by calling the Detroit Police Department Sex Crimes Unit at 313-596-1950 and requesting to speak with Sgt. Jennifer Carlson.