Investigator's discovery cracks two 1988 rape cases

The rapist left a fingerprint behind in the Eastport condominium in August 1988, police said.

Seventeen years later, detectives learned through DNA that the same man was responsible for another 1988 rape in Arnold.

But detectives weren't able to crack the two cases until a keen-eyed investigator noticed over the summer that the original fingerprint had never been entered into a national database.

William Joseph Trice, 47, a former delivery man in the Annapolis area who moved to New York two years ago, is awaiting extradition this morning from Eagle Bridge. A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 4.

Mr. Trice, most recently a tow truck driver living in Eagle Bridge, is charged with two counts of first-degree rape in two brazen sex assaults - one in August 1988 inside an Eastport condominium and another in December 1988 outside an Arnold townhouse.

County police believe he could be involved in more rapes, but they did not elaborate.

"There is a possibility," said Detective Tracy Morgan, a county police officer who helped crack the two cold cases. "Time will tell."

A sample of Mr. Trice's DNA - taken from a cigarette he threw away in front of New York State Police - confirmed his DNA matched the rapist's semen.

Officials lauded the technology that has allowed them to crack numerous cold cases in recent years.

"This is not CSI Annapolis. Nonetheless, scientific evidence and DNA led police to the arrest of now 11 defendants in what are called cold cases," said State's Attorney Frank Weathersbee.

If convicted of either the city or county rape, Mr. Trice faces the possibility of life in prison.

According to police interviews in 1988 and court records released yesterday, detectives suspect Mr. Trice raped a 30-year-old waitress in Annapolis and a 42-year-old woman in Arnold.

In the city rape, police said the attacker broke into the victim's second-floor condominium on Chesapeake

Landing at about 3 a.m. through a sliding glass door. She had arrived home from work about 30 minutes earlier.

In the county rape, police said the attacker grabbed his victim at about 3:30 a.m. as she walked up to her front door on Bay Dale Court. The man broke one of the woman's thumbs during the assault and then ran away toward the Bay Hills Shopping Center.

Police and prosecutors yesterday declined to say if or how Mr. Trice knew his alleged victims. In 1988, however, county police thought they were looking for an "opportunist."

"He's riding around that time of morning, he sees (a woman alone in a car) and he follows her. ... As soon as she gets out of her car, he's right there," Sgt. Bob Jaschik, the now-former head of the county's sex offense unit, told The Capital in 1988.

At that time, police suspected one man could be responsible for as many as three county rapes - the Arnold rape and two others in Severna Park and Cape St. Claire. County police did not say in 1988 they suspected a serial rapist was responsible for the Annapolis attack.

The serial rapist idea - at least in regards to those three rapes - was eventually unproven. Police later used DNA evidence to link the Severna Park and Cape. St. Claire rapes to other men.

Cold cases

City and county police had few leads in 1988. The city victim could not describe her attacker and the county victim could only say he was a white man in his late 20s.

In May 2005, state police crime lab technicians linked the two cases for local detectives when they discovered DNA left at the two crime scenes matched.

While the new evidence helped investigators, it didn't solve the cases.

"We knew we had related cases, but we did not have a name," said David Cordle, chief investigator for the Anne Arundel County State's Attorney's Office.

Without any more evidence, the trail went cold again. But in July 2008, Mr. Cordle reopened the file with city police Investigator William Johns.

"Every so often I review a file," Mr. Cordle said.

He recalled how Investigator Johns noticed the fingerprints recovered at the city's crime scene in 1988 had been compared only to known suspects. They had never been run through a nationwide database - an oversight attributed largely to the fact there were no nationwide fingerprint databases in 1988.

"Everybody is used to doing it now," said Investigator Johns, who regularly reviews cold cases. He said it's natural to run old fingerprints though the database and see what happens.

"A lot of time they belong to the victim," he said. "It's actually pretty unusual to get a match."

Mr. Cordle sent the fingerprints to a lab in early July and by the end of the month received a positive match for Mr. Trice. His fingerprints were on record for a prior arrest, officials said.

City and county police then contacted New York State Police, who began watching Mr. Trice in early September.

In October, police in New York grabbed a cigarette Mr. Trice threw away and sent it to a lab. That proved to be the final piece of evidence they needed. The DNA from the cigarette matched the semen left at the two rape scenes, police said.

Success

DNA has helped police crack 11 rape cases in the past seven years, prosecutors said. Of those, five cases ended in convictions, two ended with the suspect's suicide, and four are pending in county courts.

Mr. Cordle said more cold cases could be solved in the coming months and years.

"We are currently reviewing over 20 cold cases," he said, adding they have resubmitted evidence from eight to nine sex assaults to crime labs for new analysis.

"We hope to have some positive results," Mr. Cordle said.

Police stress DNA is just part of the puzzle. To file charges in a rape case, they must still do good police work to figure out what happened and prove a crime occurred.

"You have to be thorough and meticulous," said Capt. David Waltemeyer, commander of the Criminal Investigation Division. In a cold case, he said that means reinterviewing victims and witnesses and making sure prosecutors have a good case to take to court.

"You have to go back and do your homework," he said.

For now, police and prosecutors are happy to trumpet their success and look to the future.

Mr. Weathersbee called for more stringent laws requiring everyone arrested for a felony to provide police with a DNA sample. He lamented that a new law going into effect Jan. 1 - requiring DNA samples to be taken from those who are charged with committing or attempting to commit burglary and many violent crimes - was "watered down" in the legislature.

"There are a lot of people out there who have committed crimes and believe they have gotten away with it," said Investigator Johns. "We have the technology now to catch them."