DNA evidence leads to conviction in 1994 rape case

Jurors this week convicted a man linked by DNA evidence to the 1994 attack of a woman who had been jogging in the bosque when she was dragged to a secluded area, then tied, beaten and raped.

The victim, 43 when she was attacked, died in 2013, long before her decades-old rape kit was matched in 2022 to Gilbert Contreras, 58.

Prosecutors said the woman was jogging near the Rio Grande Nature Center on Nov. 26, 1994, when Contreras beat her with a rock, tied her with strips of her own clothing and raped her twice.

The case went cold, and the woman never fully recovered or felt safe again before her death, prosecutors said.

Jurors on Monday convicted Contreras on two counts of criminal sexual penetration resulting in great bodily harm or mental anguish and one count of kidnapping. His trial began Thursday in 2nd Judicial District Court.

He faces up to 72 years in prison at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Feb. 6 before Judge Courtney Weaks.

Albuquerque police said at the time of Contreras’ 2022 arrest that the woman’s rape kit became part of a backlog of thousands of untested rape kits that for years remained untested.

In 2016, Tim Keller — then state auditor, now Albuquerque’s mayor — announced that an audit found New Mexico had 5,302 untested rape kits dating to the 1980s.

Two scientific laboratories began testing the kits in 2019, leading to multiple arrests and convictions.

The 1994 case began when a passersby found the woman bloodied and tied up near a bosque trail, according to a Metropolitan Court criminal complaint.

The woman told police she was jogging on the trail when a man attacked her, threatened to kill her and dragged her to an isolated site before raping her.

Decades later, Albuquerque police got a hit in the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, that matched Contreras.

Subsequent to the 1994 attack, Contreras had been arrested and convicted of robbery, sexual assault, child abuse and aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer.

In 2012, Contreras was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty in a case where he shot up his own home in Deming to try to frame someone else.