Georgia rapist jailed after victim spots him six years later

Antonio White, 54

A Georgia man has been given a life sentence in jail for raping a woman after she recognised him as her attacker six years later.

Antonio White, 54, was identified by the victim in 2013 at a train in downtown Atlanta, officials say.

"She was overcome by the moment", said Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard, and "began to yell out" until transport police arrested the man.

Prosecutors allege he sexually assaulted other women in the area.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the district attorney said the incident happened while the woman was walking to catch a train in 2007.

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Officials say White asked the victim if she wanted a ride, and she accepted because she had known him from her old neighbourhood in Southeast Atlanta.

"Instead of driving her home, the defendant took the victim to an abandoned house," where he raped her at gunpoint, according to the statement.

"Shut up that screaming (expletive) or I'll kill you," he reportedly told her.

Six years later in October 2013, the woman was waiting for a train at the downtown Five Points station when she "just so happened to spot her attacker for the first time since he sexually assaulted her in 2007", said Mr Howard.

After he was arrested, detectives quickly learned he had also sexually assaulted several other women in the area between 1983 and 2008.

He also has prior convictions for rape and robbery, and previously pleaded guilty to sexual battery.

Police say the woman had doubted that the rapist would ever be caught, and that she had not reported the crime to police but told her friends and family that it had occurred.

"Those closest to the victim left her to believe nothing would ever come of the case, and she did not know the defendant's real name," officials say.

On Monday, White was convicted of rape and sentenced to life without parole.