Stranger sexually assaulted 6-year-old in store in 2013, WA cops say. He’s arrested
A stranger sexually assaulted a 6-year-old girl while she was shopping with her mom 11 years ago, Washington police said.
No one was arrested in the case until recently, police said.
DNA linked a 31-year-old man to the assault on Aug. 6, the Kent Police Department said in a Nov. 6 Facebook post.
Police did not identify him in the post.
The man approached the child May 19, 2013, while she was at a retail store with her mother in Kent, police said.
He is accused of assaulting her while her mother was at a register, police said.
Police said the man fled after the incident.
Investigators had surveillance video and physical evidence, but the case was never solved, police said.
Then a DNA match came back from the Combined DNA Index System, a national database used by police to compare DNA profiles from crime scenes.
The system identified the DNA from the store as a Texas resident, police said. He had been convicted of a crime against a child, so his DNA was submitted to the database, leading to the match, police said.
He had been stationed at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Pierce County at the time of the assault, police said. He later moved to Texas.
In October, Kent police worked with authorities in Texas to arrest him.
He hasn’t been extradited to King County yet, police said.
