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Francisco R. Perez appears on video in Metro Court, with public defender Renee Torrez at his side. He is charged in the Thanksgiving Day attack of a 76-year-old woman.
A 76-year-old woman who was the victim of an attack on Thanksgiving Day was walking around the track at Alamosa Elementary School when her assailant struck, according to a criminal complaint filed this week.
A suspect in the case, Francisco R. Perez, 27, was arrested Thursday and charged with kidnapping and multiple counts of criminal sexual penetration and criminal sexual contact.
Police attribute their ability to make an arrest, in part, to “Katie’s Law,” which was enacted by New Mexico four years ago and expanded Thursday when President Obama signed the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2012 into law.
The laws honor Katie Sepich, a New Mexico State University student who was raped and murdered in 2003. Sepich’s killer was arrested the same year for unrelated crimes, but he was not identified in the killing because the state was not collecting DNA from people arrested for felonies. Three years later – after he was convicted of another crime and New Mexico had a DNA law – he was identified with DNA evidence.
Central to the case of the elderly woman was a DNA match made by the Albuquerque Police Department crime lab, according to a spokeswoman.
According to a criminal complaint and arrest warrant affidavit, the victim was walking at about 6 a.m. when she was approached from behind by a man wielding a knife who ordered her to give him $10.
The victim told the man all she had with her were her house keys and a cell phone, which he took, according to the documents.
After she refusing his order to engage in a sex act, the man forced her to walk between some portable buildings at the school, where he tied her hands with a cord from her jacket. During the attack, the man set the knife on the ground and the woman grabbed it and threatened him, according to the documents. The man ran away.
The victim walked home and called police, who were able to get evidence from the site of the attack and DNA from the victim’s sexual assault examination kit. Investigators submitted the evidence to APD’s forensic lab for analysis.
On Thursday, investigators were notified by the lab that a DNA match had been made, and an arrest warrant was issued for Perez, who was on probation for other unspecified offenses.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal
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