Accused 'Pillowcase Rapist' Convicted of Kidnapping and Sexually Assaulting a Woman 40 Years Ago

Robert Eugene Koehler could face up to life in prison when he is sentenced this spring

By
Charmaine Patterson
Charmaine Patterson
Charmaine Patterson
Charmaine Patterson is an Associate Editor at PEOPLE. She first began working at PEOPLE in 2021 as a Digital News Writer. Her work has previously appeared on xoNecole, The Lakelander, and Aspire TV.
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Published on January 25, 2023 08:23PM EST
Robert Eugene Koehler in court at his first appearance before Judge David Silverman via closed circuit Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020 at the Brevard County Jail in Sharpes, Fla. Several law enforcement agencies believe the 60-year-old Palm Bay, Fla. man to be the infamous Pillow Case Rapist, who is thought to have attacked over 40 victims when in South Florida in the early 1980s. He was arrested on Saturday, January 18, 2020. (Tim Shortt/Florida Today via AP)
Photo: Tim Shortt/Florida Today/AP

A Florida man has been found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in the early 1980s.

Robert Eugene Koehler, 63 — who has come to be known as the "Pillowcase Rapist" — was convicted of kidnapping, sexual battery and burglary with a deadly weapon after a jury's hours-long deliberation on Wednesday, according to NBC Miami.

He could face up to life in prison when he's scheduled to be sentenced on March 17.

While testifying, Koehler's victim, who was 25 at the time of the assault, recalled the moment she convinced him to leave her home.

"Because I knew if I didn't get him out of the house, my husband had just left for work, I would have been there all night," she said while on the stand, according to CBS News. "So I just kept saying you got to leave, he carries a gun, he's on his way here, he just finished work at eight, he's going to kill you. He carries a gun, you gotta leave, you gotta leave, you gotta leave."

Opening up about being sexually assaulted, she added, per NBC Miami, "I screamed. [He said,] 'Shut up,' he covered my mouth, and he put [up] a sharp object."

She said he forced her onto the bed before covering her face with a blanket.

"He hit me in the face, he broke my lip," she told the jury, according to NBC Miami.

Koehler also testified and claimed police officers kidnapped him and used his DNA to frame him, CBS News reported.

He has been charged for six unrelated attacks in Broward County, according to Times Union.

After DNA testing tied him to a sexual assault from 1983, Koehler was arrested and charged in January 2020 for stabbing the 25-year-old woman and covering her face with a sheet before raping her, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said at the time. Authorities believe he sexually assaulted more than 40 women in Miami-Dade County between 1981 and 1986.

Additional DNA samples taken from Koehler following his arrest matched him to 24 other sexual assaults that police suspect were committed by the Pillowcase Rapist during that era, Fernandez Rundle said in 2020.

The "key break" in the case came in 2019 when Koehler's son was arrested in an unrelated domestic violence case, which required him to submit a DNA sample to a criminal database, Fernandez Rundle said. The DNA provided a close familial match to samples collected in the 1980s, leading investigators to believe that the then-unknown offender was his father, according to law officials.

Koehler was convicted of sexual battery in Palm Beach County in 1991, though the conviction predated mandatory collection of DNA samples from felons so he "was able to elude detection all these decades," Fernandez Rundle said.

It is not clear who is representing Koehler to comment on his behalf.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.