Man convicted in decades-old Framingham rape case

The man behind the long-unsolved Framingham rape case was found guilty Monday of rape and sexual assault charges, prosecutors announced.

Stephen Paul Gill, 73, was convicted of four counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping and one count of armed robbery for the sexual assaults of two women in 1989.

Gill is scheduled to be sentenced on March 30, Middlesex County Prosecutor Marian Ryan said in a news release Tuesday.

Gale evaded police for more than three decades, assuming multiple identities and moving around the country, Boston.com previously reported.

Modern DNA technology led to Giles’ arrest. Los Angeles police found Gill living on a luxury yacht, where he led police on an 82-minute car chase through the city, prosecutors said.

“Despite all the efforts devoted to this case when it occurred, the technology simply did not exist to identify the perpetrator of the crime,” Ryan said. “Those advances in technology, coupled with the determination of everyone involved, have brought us to today.”

On Dec. 27, 1989, Gale entered the Framingham Hit or Miss store, then a popular discount women’s clothing store, while the victims — then 18 and 29 years old — were opening the store for the day, the prosecutor said.

Prosecutors said Gale asked employees for help before pulling a gun on them.

Gill is accused of forcing the victims to sit in the back of the store, where he ordered a woman to take money from a safe, a cash register and her wallet and put the money in a bag, Ryan’s office said. Prosecutors said Gale made the other woman lock the store’s doors and display a sign on the front door saying the store would be open late.

Gale then forced the victims to remove their clothes. He held the two women in separate rooms, raped them and held a gun to their heads, the DA said. Eventually, believing Gale had left, the women fled out the back door of the store and into a nearby house.

While investigating the assaults, police developed a DNA profile, the DA said.

After Framingham Police signed a contract with Parabon Nanolabs In 2022, authorities could use investigative genetic genealogy to investigate the case, Ryan’s office said.

Middlesex prosecutors said investigators eventually obtained DNA from known members of Gill’s family and compared it to evidence obtained from the scene in 1989.

Gale was identified as a suspect in May 2024 and was arrested three months later.

When police tried to arrest Gill, he led police on an 82-minute car chase through Los Angeles that extended 40 miles, the prosecutor said. Gill was eventually arrested and returned to Massachusetts.

“For those still waiting for answers, our commitment remains clear: We will revisit the past, pursue every lead, and continue to search for answers,” Ryan said. “When a crime occurs here, we neither forget nor give up.”