LYNNWOOD — She was asleep in her bed when she felt the stranger on top of her tugging at her clothes.
He ordered her to shut up or he would shoot everyone in the apartment. She could smell alcohol on his breath. She begged for the man to stop. After he was done he told her he was going to stay in the apartment for awhile.
She was too scared to leave her room until she heard her mother in the bathroom. By then, the man was gone.
The attack happened three days before Christmas 2002. She was 13.
Snohomish County sheriff’s deputies on Tuesday arrested the man they believe is responsible. Detectives say they identified Dennis Wiseman, 40, through genetic evidence collected during the 2002 rape investigation.
Wiseman was stopped Tuesday afternoon as he was driving away from his Lynnwood-area apartment in the 16800 block of Sixth Avenue W. Police believe he was living there at the time of the attack, less than half-mile from where the girl lived, according to the police affidavit.
Wiseman was booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of first-degree rape and first-degree burglary. A judge on Wednesday ordered him held on $500,000 bail.
“These cases are rare but are terrifying for the victim,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said. “I hope that this provides some peace and justice for her.”
The girl, now 19, provided a description of her attacker in 2002.
Two of the victim’s girlfriends were sleeping over and gave police a description of a man they saw leaving the bedroom. They slept through the attack but woke up when they heard a man’s voice, according to court papers.
Police had little more to work with and the case went cold.
What they had, though, was a good DNA sample.
Two years ago prosecutors filed rape charges against “Individual A” after state forensic scientists analyzed a genetic sample collected in an examination of the girl following the attack.
At the time the DNA sequence didn’t match any kept on file in the state and national databases.
Prosecutors file charges against unknown people when they have DNA as a way to avoid any problems with the statute of limitations, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Mark Roe said.
“I have a drawer full of John Doe cases,” said Roe, who leads the prosecutor office’s sexual assault unit.
Investigators say they got a break in the case last month.
That’s when they learned a genetic sample from a convicted felon recently entered into the state’s database matched a sample collected in 2002.
In 2002 Wiseman vandalized several Mill Creek police cars. He wasn’t charged until 2004, and eventually was convicted of first-degree malicious mischief in 2008, a felony.
He was required to provide a DNA sample as part of his felony sentence.
Wiseman was already a convicted felon, having served time for attempted burglary in 1988 and possession of stolen property in 1995. But at the time he wasn’t required to provide a DNA sample.
Legislators in 1990 ordered genetic samples to be collected only from people convicted of violent and sex crimes.
In 2002 the law was expanded to include everyone convicted of any felony. More crimes were added last year, including misdemeanor harassment and stalking.
Roe said it is uncommon to have DNA evidence in rape cases.
The majority of sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows and a large percentage of those aren’t reported right away, leaving little chance of collecting genetic evidence, he said.
“DNA is not the cure-all that it seems to be on TV,” Roe said. “We sure face (that) expectation by jurors and news people. They want to know where the DNA is.”
There is a nationwide backlog in forensic laboratories tasked with analyzing samples collected from offenders and crime scenes. The National Institute for Justice estimates that nationwide as many as 300,000 genetic samples collected from offenders haven’t been tested. Between 500,000 and 1 million samples have yet to be collected from convicted offenders, according to the NIJ.
Grants and funding are being made available to labs to combat the backlog.
“Certainly there are gaps in the DNA net,” Roe said. “This is an encouraging sign the gaps are being filled in.”
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463, hefley@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
