Man arrested 28 years after a woman was sexually assaulted in Prescott
An arrest was made in a nearly 30-year-old sexual assault case after detectives found that DNA evidence had not been entered into the national database, according to a Yavapai County Sheriff's Office new release.
In November 2022, cold case detectives took a sexual assault case from 1995 with minimal evidence: only fingerprints and DNA. The fingerprints were a bust but the DNA evidence was promising — mainly because it had not yet been entered into the national database and could potentially link someone to the crime.
In the early morning of Oct. 18, 1995, a then 36-year-old Prescott woman reported that she had been sexually assaulted by an unknown male in the parking lot of the Pinion Pines bar off State Route 89A in Prescott, the release stated.
The woman had been with her friends at the bar that evening and left her car in the parking lot when the group walked by to a nearby hotel. Around midnight, the woman took a taxi back to the bar to get her car.
While opening the car door, the woman was attacked from behind by an unknown male, forcibly thrown to the ground and brutally raped, according to the release.
The woman was only able to give authorities a vague description of the assailant, including that he had dark hair, was thin and tall, and was wearing a dark coat that looked like a flight jacket.
Yavapai County detectives were able to retrieve a DNA sample and latent fingerprints but were never able to identify a suspect.
In November 2022, a Yavapai County cold case detective took over the case and found that the fingerprints were of no value. However, he found that the DNA sample had never been entered into the national DNA database CODIS. In July, the DNA profile was entered into the national system, with detectives' hopes of getting a "hit."
Not long after, CODIS identified the DNA profile as belonging to a 52-year-old Prescott Valley man.
Based on the DNA and a subsequent interview, detectives were able to obtain an indictment for the man and arrested him on suspicion of sexual assault. He was booked into a Yavapai County Sheriff's Office county jail.
"The follow-through of the volunteer YCSO Cold Case detectives has once again helped with closure for a woman who has been waiting close to 20 years," said Sheriff David Rhodes. "I cannot overstate how valuable these volunteers are to our agency and I thank them for their hard work bringing justice to this victim."
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Man arrested in 1995 Prescott sexual assault cold case
