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Wednesday, October 25, 2000
DNA match leads officers to a suspect
Man arrested on a warrant that never stated his name
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A Sacramento man has been charged with a 1994 rape in what is believed to be the first arrest in the nation to be made with the use of a warrant that identifies a suspect by his DNA only.
Paul Eugene Robinson, 31, was arrested last month after state computers matched his genetic code to the no-name warrant. He was charged with five counts of sexual assault.
Such DNA warrants are increasingly being filed as a way to get around the statute of limitations for bringing charges against a suspect.
The warrant in the Sacramento case was issued in August as the six-year statute of limitations on the rape was about to run out. The August 1994 rape was one in a series of five rapes by a man police and newspapers called the Second Story Rapist for his penchant for attacking women who lived on the second floor of apartment buildings.
Other law enforcement agencies around the country have filed such DNA warrants, but Robinson is believed to be the first suspect arrested through one, said Jim Polley, director of governmental affairs for the National District Attorneys Association, based in Alexandria, Va.
Lawrence Kobilinsky, assistant provost at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, agreed that it was the first such arrest.
"I think someday this DNA technology will be where fingerprints are now, where you just put the info in the computer and get a hit on your bad guy," Sacramento Detective Peter Willover said Tuesday.
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