Man is sentenced for 1999 rape and attempted murder in Kansas City, Kan.

A 38-year-old man linked by DNA evidence to the 1999 rape and attempted murder of a Kansas City, Kan., woman was sentenced Thursday to 17 years and eight months in prison.

Jibri Liu-Kinte Burnett was sentenced in Wyandotte County District Court, where he pleaded guilty last month to sexually assaulting the woman and stabbing her multiple times in the August 1999 attack.

The woman was asleep in her home in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Kansas City, Kan., when she was awakened by an intruder who raped and stabbed her before fleeing.

The victim was able to crawl to her neighbor’s house for help.

She was taken to a hospital in critical condition and underwent emergency surgery.

In 2001, before the identity of the perpetrator was known, prosecutors filed criminal charges under the name of “John Doe” so the statute of limitations would not run out before a suspect could be identified.

In 2014, during a review of the case by Kansas City, Kan., police and Wyandotte County prosecutors, they established that there was a link between evidence preserved from the crime scene and a sample of DNA from Burnett contained in a national computer database.

After additional investigation by detectives, Burnett was arrested last May and confessed to the crime.

This story was originally published May 12, 2016 at 4:42 PM.