DNA from steering wheel links school bus driver to decades-old rapes, NM officials say
A school bus driver has been arrested after DNA helped officials identify him as a suspect in four cold case rapes, New Mexico prosecutors said.
Ralph Anthony Martinez, 61, who works as a bus driver for Albuquerque Public Schools, has been identified as a suspect in four cold case sexual assaults from 1988, 1989 and 1991, the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office said in a July 27 news release.
Albuquerque Public Schools did not immediately return McClatchy News’ request for comment.
The school district told KRQE that Martinez, who was hired in 2018, has been put on leave, pending the findings of an investigation. The district told the TV station that it requires all employees to complete a background check before they are hired.
Investigators with the district attorney’s office collected DNA from a “steering wheel, gear shift and switches” in a school bus Martinez drove, prosecutors said.
Testing showed the DNA matched DNA collected from the sexual assaults from more than three decades ago, according to prosecutors.
Decades-old rapes
In the first rape Martinez is accused of, a 19-year-old woman was sleeping in her Albuquerque home in October 1988 when he broke in and raped her at knifepoint, prosecutors said.
Martinez is also accused of a 1989 sexual assault of a 59-year-old woman who is no longer living, prosecutors said.
In two separate incidents days apart in August 1991, Martinez is accused of sexually assaulting a 35-year-old and 18-year-old after breaking into their homes while they were sleeping, prosecutors said.
Martinez is facing four charges of second-degree criminal sexual penetration (deadly weapon), online jail records show.
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