Dona Ana County sheriff's investigators on Thursday filed charges against Noel Manuel Sanchez, 32, in the kidnapping and rape of a 41-year-old Dona Ana County woman in January 2002 -- after matching DNA from the victim with the suspect, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported.

Sanchez -- who is in Western New Mexico Correctional Facility in Grants on unrelated kidnapping, aggravated assault and other felony convictions -- now faces three counts of second-degree rape and first-degree kidnapping in connection with the assault in the early-morning hours of Jan. 26, 2002, the Sun-News reported.

The woman -- who had pulled over with a flat tire, was accosted by a man who had been following her car and repeatedly raped -- was treated at a Las Cruces hospital where a sexual-assault nurse took a DNA sample, the Sun-News said.

Sheriff's investigator Lindell Wright told the paper that state law at the time required a DNA sample from the victim to be matched with a specific suspect.

But with the passage in this year's Legislature of "Katie's Law" -- named for slain New Mexico State University student Katie Sepich -- DNA samples are collected from everyone charged with certain crimes.

Had the law been in place in 2002, Wright told the paper, he might have been able to file charges four years ago.

But the new law and District Attorney Susana Martinez's recent funding for sheriff's investigators to look into old rape cases, Wright said he was able to send samples from the 2002 case to the crime lab, the Sun-News said.

After Sanchez turned up in the crime lab's data base, Wright and another investigator went to the Grants prison with a warrant and collected a new DNA sample from Sanchez, which Wright said matched evidence from the 2002 case, the paper reported.

Your Name:

Your Email Address:

Rate this article:
Poor Great

Comment:

BOLD

"QUOTE"

UNDERLINE