MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WGNS News) - In 2020, a woman who was sexually attacked inside a room at the Vista Inn of Murfreesboro filed a report of the incident in hopes that the unknown suspect would be caught. But at the time, police had little to go on... That was Rutherford County District Attorney General Jennings Jones.

After the attack, the case went unsolved for weeks, which turned into months and eventually years... Not knowing the attacker personally made the investigation even tougher to solve. By year three, the victim was likely questioning whether the assailant would ever be caught. That is true in a large percentage of stranger-on-stranger sexual assault cases, leaving victims to live with fear and uncertainty, never knowing who may be hiding behind the next door.

National statistics do not track unsolved or solved percentages for such specific sexual assaults. However, FBI data does track the U.S. clearance rate for “all reported rapes,” and those statistics show that roughly 65% to 67% of rape cases remain unsolved. Nationally, those numbers mean that about 1 in 3 reported cases are solved or cleared.

For those who knew about the attack on Mrs. Stacy - and the fact that the case remained unsolved - the thought of her attacker still roaming the streets, rather than being behind bars, was deeply troubling. Equally concerning was the location of the incident. Although the hotel operates under a different name today, its address remains less than a mile from a local high school, less than 750 feet from a nearby neighborhood, and about 1,000 feet from two large apartment complexes and a church. Adding to those concerns, the hotel sits along a route that a handful of teenagers use while walking home almost daily.

Then one day, everything changed as she walked inside a local nonprofit organization that helps those who are homeless or struggling... The woman’s fear of the sexual attacker hiding in a dark room came to light, and a call to Murfreesboro Police led to a name and, ultimately, a DNA comparison test using evidence collected three years earlier...

With a positive DNA result in hand, the case took a turn. But by the time those results were confirmed, suspect Thomas Skellion (Pictured above and below article), who is now 71 years old, was no longer at the nonprofit. Thankfully, it did not take authorities long to track him down...

Detectives went to visit Mr. Skellion, who was already behind bars for a previous crime... The results from the TBI Crime Lab led to the final chapter of the case being closed six years after the initial attack... Scroll down to see mugshot.

Thanks to the work of Murfreesboro Police, the Rutherford County District Attorney’s Office, the TBI, and the brave victim in the initial case, Thomas Skellion will remain in prison for the remainder of his life... Skellion was convicted of rape and kidnapping under Judge James “Jimmy” Turner this past month. The Murfreesboro case led to a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, as well as the requirement that Skellion be placed on the sex offender registry.

Convicted subject in Murfreesboro, TN Rape Case Pictured (ABOVE)