The Anchorage Police Department announced on Thursday that a cold case involving a 1995 sexual assault was sent to a Grand Jury after an untested sexual assault test kit was analyzed and got a positive match.

An Anchorage Grand Jury indicted 51-year-old Ronald Wade Fischer following an investigation into the rape of a 17-year-old teen behind an Anchorage restaurant in 1995. 

APD had initiated an investigation following the incident that year but was unable to identify a suspect and the case went cold for twenty-five years. But, in 2020, the kit, one of many untested sexual assault kits from 47 departments around the state was tested in a state-funded initiative and resulted in a potential suspect being identified.

The investigation was reopened by the Anchorage Police Department’s Cold Case Unit and the results were turned over to the Department of Law’s Office of Special Prosecutions who in turn presented it to a Grand Jury.

Fischer was taken into custody in the Lower 48 on Wednesday and will be extradited back to Alaska to face trial.

If convicted, Fischer faces up to 30 years in prison.

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