An Alabama man was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for raping a 95-year-old woman living with Alzheimer’s disease.
Robert James Suggs, 53, was convicted by a jury in January of two counts of first-degree rape.
The charges stemmed from two incidents in the town of Cottonwood, just north of the Florida state line, in November 2024.
Suggs invited the woman, described by officials as his neighbor, to go fishing at a nearby pond, county investigators said.
He then picked her up in a golf cart and drove to Sealy Bales Creek. After the fishing trip, Suggs raped the woman twice, once on the golf cart and once at her home, Houston County Corporal Brandon Barnes told local ABC affiliate WDNH.
The woman, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016, had adult diapers on, which Suggs removed before sexually assaulting her, Wiregrass Daily News reported.
After the woman told a family member she thought she might be pregnant, officials conducted a rape kit, which found Suggs’s DNA.
Suggs was arrested in November 2024 and indicted by a grand jury five months later. Earlier this year, he was found guilty of raping his elderly neighbor.
On Wednesday, Alabama Circuit Judge Henry D. “Butch” Binford sentenced him to life in prison, a decision welcomed by Angela Underwood, an attorney representing the victim’s family.
“For a 95-year-old woman to have lived this long and have suffered what she suffered and to still be here, it sends a message that this type of crime will not go unnoticed and there will be justice,” Underwood told WTVY News4.
