CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — A 24-year-old Chambersburg man is now in custody on rape charges after state police obtained a DNA sample linking him to the eight-year-old rape of a juvenile girl in the same city, state police reported.
Mehki Miley Rideout was arrested and charged on June 23 after Pennsylvania State Police used DNA evidence to solve the case. Rideout is incarcerated at the Franklin County Jail, facing numerous felony charges including rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse by forcible compulsion, sexual assault and aggravated assault. His next court hearing is scheduled for July 7.
In May 2017, an then-unknown intruder entered a home in Chambersburg and sexually assaulted a young girl, burning her with a cigarette during the attack. The victim underwent a medical examination at the Chambersburg Hospital, where a sexual assault kit was completed and preserved.
The case had gone unsolved, but on Nov. 24, 2025, investigators received a notification that the DNA profile from the 2017 sexual assault kit returned a positive match to Rideout.
However, police said, after Rideout denied knowing the victim during a police interview, state police secured a sealed search warrant for a direct DNA swab, which they served to him on April 9. Just two hours after his DNA was collected, Rideout cut off his court-ordered GPS ankle monitor, later telling his mother he did it because he was terrified of the test results, officers alleged. He was quickly apprehended and sentenced to 5 to 23 months in jail for felony escape.
On June 18, state police officially confirmed that his direct DNA swab was a perfect match to the 2017 crime scene evidence, and the new charges were imposed.
