Three years ago, state police discovered the same man’s DNA was left at two separate rape scenes from 1988, but the man’s identity remained a mystery.
Now two decades after the attacks, Anne Arundel police announced at a news conference Monday in Annapolis that they finally have a name.
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William Trice, 47, of Eagle Bridge, N.Y., was arrested last week on two first-degree rape charges after New York State Police, working with Anne Arundel authorities, conducted a two-week surveillance of Trice and used DNA from a discarded cigarette to confirm the match, according to court records.
“It’s extremely gratifying to see him arrested,” said Anne Arundel Police Det. Tracy Morgan, who traveled to New York to witness Trice’s arrest.
“These women have lived with this assault for 20 years, and to be able to identify a suspect, whether it’s an hour later or 20 years later, is extremely gratifying.”
Anne Arundel police said they honed in on Trice, a tow truck operator, in July 2008 after matching a latent fingerprint from one of the rapes to Trice’s fingerprint already in a national law enforcement database. The DNA results from the cigarette later confirmed the match.
Trice is accused of raping an Eastport woman in August 1988 after she returned home from work at a local restaurant around 3 a.m., according to court records. The second rape occurred in December 1988 when an Arnold woman was attacked outside her residence after arriving home late at night, police said.
Trice will be held in Albany, N.Y., until his extradition hearing on Dec. 4, police said.
“This case shows that DNA databases … led to the arrest of an out-of-state man who had no idea that 20 years after his alleged crime, we would come back to get him,” said Anne Arundel State’s Attorney Frank Weathersbee, who endorsed legislation authorizing police to take DNA from all felons at the time of arrest.
Weathersbee said Trice is the county’s ninth defendant charged in a cold case after a federal grant allowed authorities to review cold cases between 2003 and 2006 and enter more than 500 pieces of evidence from more than 200 cases into national law enforcement databases.
Morgan said Trice could be linked to other unsolved cold cases — about two dozen remain open in Anne Arundel.
“Only time will tell if we get more DNA matches in the future,” she said.
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