EVERETT — Evidence collected from a 2004 sexual assault that happened hundreds of miles away has led Snohomish County investigators to the door of an Everett man now suspected in an August attack here.

Police arrested the man, 33, on Wednesday for investigation of first-degree rape involving a teenage girl in south Everett. The man was released on $25,000 bail early Thursday morning. He has a criminal history in Iowa, including a conviction for assault with a weapon, according to Iowa Department of Corrections records.

Investigators got a break in the Everett case when DNA collected in the Aug. 19 sexual assault was matched to DNA from an unsolved 2004 sexual assault in Waterloo, Iowa, according to a search warrant affidavit. The man is a suspect in the Iowa case.

The match was made through a national database that allows detectives to compare genetic evidence collected at crime scenes with samples taken from convicted offenders or gathered at the scenes of other unsolved crimes.

Once the match was made, sheriff’s detectives talked with police in Iowa. That information led them to the Everett man. Iowa police had questioned him in the 2004 case, but their investigation stalled after he refused to provide a DNA sample, according to the search warrant.

The man has been in Washington for about a year and has been living in an apartment about a mile away from the location of the Aug. 19 attack, according to court records.

“If we hadn’t had the match from the database, it’s difficult to say where the case would have gone,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said. “With the database and the dedicated work by detectives, we ended up with an arrest.”

A search warrant was served at the man’s apartment Wednesday. With a judge’s permission, police swabbed the inside of the man’s mouth to collect a DNA sample. That evidence will be sent to the state crime lab, where it will be compared with the sample taken from last month’s sexual assault, Hover said.

The man lives in the 800 block of 112th Street SE in Everett. That’s about a dozen blocks from where the 17-year-old girl was attacked.

Detectives told a judge there are a number of similarities between the attacks in Everett and Iowa. They also assert that the man resembles the description of the girl’s attacker. They attached to the search warrant affidavit a police sketch of the suspect in the August attack as well as a 2004 booking photo of the man.

The girl told police she was walking to work about 8 a.m. when a man armed with a knife grabbed her. The attacker forced her to the parking lot area of a nearby apartment, where she was sexually assaulted. The Iowa rape involved a woman who said she was pulled into her attacker’s car.

Investigators are not linking the man to another attempted sexual assault in Everett in August, Hover said. In that case, a man grabbed a 26-year-old woman as she walked in the 12600 block of Eighth Avenue W. He hit her on the head but fled when the woman’s screams attracted the attention of neighbors.

Suspect sketches in both attacks are similar, but detectives believe another man might be responsible for the attack on the 26-year-old woman, Hover said. That investigation continues.

The attacks have left some neighbors shaken.

“It has freaked us out,” Jeri Anderson said Thursday afternoon as she sat with rollers in her hair at the 4th Avenue Hair Salon. The beauty parlor is less than a block from where the teenager was assaulted. Anderson lives in a nearby apartment. She said it’s caused her to keep an eye out for the suspect.

“It’s definitely alarming, because sometimes we work late into the evening,” said Erin Coffman, Anderson’s hairdresser. Coffman said she has been especially vigilant the last month, paying close attention to her surroundings and taking extra measures to protect herself.

Brad Solvang, who lives at the complex where the rape happened, said the attack has spread fear through the community and caused longtime residents to curtail evening walks.

Solvang said he and a few others have taken turns patrolling the complex at night.

“The women here have been absolutely paranoid,” Solvang said. “The arrest is going to make so many people happy.”

On Thursday, in the apartment complex where the suspect lives, somebody had scrawled the word “arrested” in red pen across one of the posters police had put up seeking information in the case.

But Clarissa Huot, a resident there with two young children, said she is concerned by the man’s release after posting bail.

“I don’t open my back patio anymore, and when I walk outside, I look at the bushes,” she said. “I just cringe when I see young women walking by themselves with their little iPods, not paying attention to anything in the world.”

Alex Vela, who works with his wife at Fazzio Cleaners on Fourth Avenue, said even though the couple live a short walk from work, his wife has insisted recently that they drive.

Mukilteo School District officials have been notified of the man’s arrest, spokesman Andy Muntz said. Discovery Elementary School, Voyager Middle School and Mariner High School are nearby.

Deputies will be made aware of the man’s release. They will increase the time they patrol the area as they can, Hover said.

“We’re telling people to be alert and aware of their surroundings, just as we suggested before,” Hover said. “We don’t want people to panic.”