Trigger Warning: Rape

Man Serving 60 Years for 1992 Rape Sentenced to Additional 24 Years for Other Cold Case Rape Following DNA Confirmation Through SAKI Grant Program

NORFOLK, Va. — Anthony Favors was sentenced in September to serve 24 years in prison for a February 1992 rape, to which he pleaded guilty earlier this year, after DNA evidence identified him as the suspect in the cold case. Mr. Favors, now 56 years old, had already been in custody serving a 60-year prison sentence for a different rape he had committed (and for which he was apprehended by police in the immediate aftermath) in March of 1992, and his new sentence will run consecutively to that active sentence.

The DNA confirmation of Mr. Favors’ identity from the February 1992 case was made possible thanks to the grant-funded Virginia Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) by the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia and its partners, which implemented new and comprehensive procedures in recent years for testing a statewide backlog of physical evidence recovery kits (PERKs) from cold sexual assault cases.

On Feb. 15, 1992, Mr. Favors walked into the victim’s apartment on Lankford Avenue through the front door — which could not be locked due to damage to the door frame — while she was home alone and sleeping on her couch. Mr. Favors awoke the victim, pushed her face into the couch while making her undress, raped her twice, and forced her to perform oral sex on him. The victim was a stranger to Mr. Favors and was unable to identify him to police, but she noticed that Mr. Favors had a scar about the size of a quarter on one of his shoulders.

Mr. Favors eventually left the victim’s apartment but came back a short time later to ensure she had not immediately called the police. After Mr. Favors left her apartment the second time, the victim decided to flee the apartment, armed herself with a knife, ran to her car, and drove herself to Naval Station Norfolk to report the rapes to law enforcement. The victim underwent a sexual assault nurse examination, during which fluids containing Mr. Favors’ DNA were collected for the victim’s PERK. However, modern DNA testing was not yet available to forensic specialists, Mr. Favors was not able to be identified, and the case went cold.

A month later, in March 1992, Mr. Favors raped another woman in Norfolk after he forced his way into the back door of her residence and beat her when she awoke to the sound of him breaking in. Mr. Favors stole that victim’s ATM card and dragged her out of her residence in an attempt to force her to go with him to an ATM to make a withdrawal, but he caught the attention of passersby in the process and had to flee. This allowed the victim time to run to a neighbor’s home to call police, who located and arrested Mr. Favors shortly afterward. As a result of that investigation and the victim’s direct visual identification of Mr. Favors following his arrest, Mr. Favors was charged with and pleaded guilty to rape, robbery, and burglary with the intent to commit rape. Following those convictions, law enforcement collected Mr. Favors’ DNA and submitted it to the Virginia and national DNA databases. In 1993, Mr. Favors was sentenced in that case to serve 60 years in prison with another 40 years suspended.

Following the Norfolk Police’s inventory of PERKs from 1990s cold cases — made possible by the SAKI program’s grant funding — the victim’s PERK from the February 1992 case was sent to a DNA lab for testing in 2022. Mr. Favors was identified as a lead through the national DNA database, and investigators secured a search warrant for a new sample of Mr. Favors’ DNA for direct comparison to confirm the lead. Subsequent analyses again confirmed Mr. Favors as the man who committed the February 1992 rapes, and investigators confirmed that Mr. Favors has the scar on his shoulder that the February 1992 victim had seen. Mr. Favors gave a full confession to investigators and admitted that he had wondered when the February 1992 incident would catch up with him.

In April 2025, Mr. Favors entered an agreement to plead guilty to two counts of rape from the February 1992 cold case. In exchange, the Commonwealth agreed not to pursue additional charges against him from that incident. Judge Everett A. Martin Jr. accepted Mr. Favors’s plea agreement, which allowed for a sentence at the judge’s discretion of up to 40 years in prison.

At his sentencing hearing on Sept. 26, the Commonwealth argued that Mr. Favors should serve 32 to 33 years in prison, which was the amount of time since February 1992 that the victim had to wait for Mr. Favors to be identified and prosecuted. Mr. Favors’s defense counsel argued for a lesser sentence, citing Mr. Favors’s guilty pleas as him taking accountability. After hearing the arguments, Judge Martin sentenced Mr. Favors to serve 24 years in prison — 12 years for each count of rape to be served consecutively — and six months of post-release supervision.

“Cold cases are some of the most important work that prosecutors and police do,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “While the survivor in this case waited 32 years for justice, advances in technology and the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative have finally, after all of this time, offered her a measure of clarity and accountability. The wheels of justice sometimes move painfully slowly, but they never stop, and we will continue to turn them.”

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Liane Galardi prosecuted Mr. Favors’s cold case, and Norfolk Police Sergeant Brian C. Williams led the SAKI investigation. Mr. Favors’s March 1992 case was prosecuted by Cynthia D. Collard (née Barnaby), then an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney, who later went into private practice, returned to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in 2015, and now serves as the Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney overseeing the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Team.

###

Trigger Warning: Rape

Man Serving Sentence for 1992 Rape Pleads Guilty to Other Previously Unsolved 1992 Rape Following DNA Confirmation Through SAKI Grant Program

NORFOLK, Va. — Anthony Favors, 55, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two counts of rape from a February 1992 burglary after DNA that was preserved and retested from that cold case victim’s file confirmed Mr. Favors to be the previously unidentified suspect. Mr. Favors is currently serving a 60-year prison sentence for a different rape he committed in March 1992 — after which he was promptly arrested and visually identified by that victim — and he now faces 40 additional years in prison.

The DNA confirmation of Mr. Favors’ identity from the February 1992 case was made possible thanks to the grant-funded Virginia Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) by the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia and its partners, which implemented new and comprehensive procedures in recent years for testing a statewide backlog of physical evidence recovery kits (PERKs) from cold sexual assault cases.

On Feb. 15, 1992, Mr. Favors walked into the victim’s apartment on Lankford Avenue through the front door — which could not be locked due to damage to the door frame — while she was home alone and sleeping on her couch. Mr. Favors awoke the victim, pushed her face into the couch while making her undress, raped her twice, and forced her to perform oral sex on him. The victim was a stranger to Mr. Favors and was unable to identify him to police, but she noticed that Mr. Favors had a scar about the size of a quarter on one of his shoulders.

Mr. Favors eventually left the victim’s apartment but came back a short time later to ensure she had not immediately called the police. After Mr. Favors left her apartment the second time, the victim decided to flee the apartment, armed herself with a knife, ran to her car, and drove herself to Naval Station Norfolk to report the rapes to law enforcement. The victim underwent a sexual assault nurse examination, during which fluids containing Mr. Favors’ DNA were collected for the victim’s PERK. However, modern DNA testing was not yet available to forensic specialists, Mr. Favors was not able to be identified, and the case went cold.

A month later, in March 1992, Mr. Favors raped another woman in Norfolk after he forced his way into the back door of her residence and beat her when she awoke to the sound of him breaking in. Mr. Favors stole that victim’s ATM card and dragged her out of her residence in an attempt to force her to go with him to an ATM to make a withdrawal, but he caught the attention of passersby in the process and had to flee. This allowed the victim time to run to a neighbor’s home to call police, who located and arrested Mr. Favors shortly afterward. As a result of that investigation and the victim’s direct visual identification of Mr. Favors following his arrest, Mr. Favors was charged with and pleaded guilty to rape, robbery, and burglary with the intent to commit rape. Following those convictions, law enforcement collected Mr. Favors’ DNA and submitted it to the Virginia and national DNA databases. In 1993, Mr. Favors was sentenced in that case to serve 60 years in prison with another 40 years suspended.

Following the Norfolk Police’s inventory of PERKs from 1990s cold cases — made possible by the SAKI program’s grant funding — the victim’s PERK from the February 1992 case was sent to a DNA lab for testing in 2022. Mr. Favors was identified as a lead through the national DNA database, and investigators secured a search warrant for a new sample of Mr. Favors’ DNA for direct comparison to confirm the lead. Subsequent analyses again confirmed Mr. Favors as the man who committed the February 1992 rapes, and investigators confirmed that Mr. Favors has the scar on his shoulder that the February 1992 victim had seen. Mr. Favors gave a full confession to investigators and admitted that he had wondered when the February 1992 incident would catch up with him.

On Tuesday, Mr. Favors entered an agreement to plead guilty to two counts of rape and be sentenced by the deciding judge to serve up to 40 years in prison. In exchange, the Commonwealth agreed not to pursue additional charges against him from the February 1992 incident. Judge Everett A. Martin Jr. accepted Mr. Favors’ plea agreement and set his sentencing hearing on July 18.

“I express my sympathy to the survivors of Mr. Favors’ rapes,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi. “They both reported his crimes and cooperated with the police. One received the reassurance that the police had caught her assailant and that we had sent him to prison, and the other, due to the limitations of technology, had to live 33 years to see her assailant convicted. The justice system cannot undo harm or fix systemic problems, but, where the evidence is there, it can offer closure, reassurance, and finality. I am sorry that only one survivor got that reassurance immediately. We will continue to focus the efforts of our office to prosecute and hold accountable the people who harm our fellow citizens, no matter how long ago. I am grateful to the Attorney General’s SAKI program for allowing justice, in the end, to be served.”

Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Liane Galardi is prosecuting Mr. Favors’ current case, and Norfolk Police Sergeant Brian C. Williams led the re-opened SAKI investigation. Mr. Favors’ March 1992 case was prosecuted by Cynthia D. Collard (née Barnaby), then an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney, who later went into private practice, returned to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in 2015, and now serves as the Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney overseeing the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Team.

###