A DNA match has linked a Texas inmate to a 2003 sexual assault in Silver Spring, Md. News4’s Darcy Spencer reports.
A Texas inmate has arrived in Maryland after DNA linked him to the rape and kidnapping of a woman in Silver Spring nine years ago.
David Martinez, 30, was ordered held without bond. Charges against him include first-degree rape and kidnapping.
Montgomery County Police said they've matched him to "a vicious and brutal attack" in 2003, when a 23-year-old woman was attacked as she walked from her car to her home on Lowander Lane in Silver Spring, around 1:30 a.m. one night.
She tried to fight back, but the attacker choked her until she lost consciousness. He threw her into his car and brought her to Montgomery Knolls Elementary School, where he raped her in the school parking lot, police said.
The victim regained consciousness during the assault, and the attacker later left her in the school parking lot. She was able to get help at a local hospital and had a rape kit performed -- which collected the DNA evidence that would prove crucial in finding a suspect, nine years later.
Martinez had been serving time in Texas for for soliciting a prostitute when police got the DNA match in July 2011. But authorities had to wait for him to finish serving his sentence there.
They were finally able to transport him to Maryland last week.
Martinez had previously lived in Aspen Hill, Md.
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The victim told News4's Darcy Spencer that she's "ecstatic" that an arrest has been made after all these years, and is hoping to find closure.
