DNA Evidence Solves Third Cold Rape Case

Montgomery County Police solved a 25-year-old rape case Monday with the matching of a DNA sample to a serial rapist convicted in Anne Arundel County.

The DNA matched a sample in a national database called Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). According to a press release from the police department, CODIS’ mission is to provide support to federal, state and local laboratories.

The sample came from William Joseph Trice, who was convicted in 2010 for raping an Annapolis woman in 1988. New York State Police helped make the initial arrest.

In 2005, Anne Arundel County Police received information that a DNA profile from two of their cold cases matched a CODIS search. But police officials were still in a bind, there wasn’t a specific DNA profile match on record to help identify a suspect.

Evidence from the 1988 Annapolis rape case was reviewed a few years later and a fingerprint was recovered from the scene. The print matched that of a known individual in the latent fingerprint database. It helped authorities match it to a name.

That sample was taken from Trice by New York police authorities during a traffic stop, according to the release.

The NYPD watched Trice until he could be arrested and brought to trial in Anne Arundel County. He was tried and convicted of the Annapolis rape in January 2010. Trice committed suicide by hanging himself in his jail cell six days after his conviction.

He also was linked through his DNA to another rape of a 42-year-old woman in Arnold from December 1988.

Police had no other cases linked to Trice until Montgomery police found another match this July.

The latest victim to receive closure was 20 years old at the time of her rape in 1987. She was awakened at 4 a.m. in her Silver Spring apartment where Trice allegedly gained access through a window and raped her. The woman now lives in Anne Arundel County.

Due to the similar patterns in the rape cases and the relative short window of time between them, the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney Frank Weathersbee is encouraging jurisdictions in the surrounding area with unsolved rapes from the mid to late 1980s to review the evidence and determine whether a DNA profile can be run for a CODIS match.