DNA Helps Police Nab Two Suspects

By Lookout Staff

July 19 -- A convicted rapist and a man accused of sexual assault are behind bars, and the key to revealing their identities was looking at something that was locked inside of them all along.

Troy Malray, 44, and John Wayne Smith, 45, were arrested after police in Santa Monica and in Northern California linked each man using DNA to the alleged crimes, which were committed separately.

Santa Monica Police said Malray – who was arrested Monday, June 17, in San Bernardino – is responsible for the beating and sexual assault of a local woman he held captive for half an hour at her seaside home in Santa Monica on September 1, 2005.

DNA taken from the scene that night was run through CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) and a positive match came up identifying Malray, who has an “extensive criminal history.” Malray also matched the description by the victim, Santa Monica police said.

Malray assaulted and threatened to kill his victim in her home before forcing her to submit to sexual acts, police said in a statement. When the suspect eventually fled, the victim called Santa Monica Police.

After the DNA tests came up positive, Santa Monica Police worked with San Bernardino authorities and captured Malray in Adalanto without incident.

Malray was booked at the Santa Monica Jail and charged with one count of sexual assault and his bail has been set at $1,000,000

For Smith – who was five months short of being paroled after 13 years of incarceration for the 1991 Santa Monica rapes of a mother and daughter – it was DNA evidence that led to a new charge of torture stemming from a Northern California attack 16 years ago.

Smith was convicted of raping a mother and daughter in Santa Monica in August 1991, after the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department got a match on his DNA connecting him to three attacks between December 1990 and March 1991 in the East Bay area of San Francisco, police said.

Smith will not stand trial for the alleged assaults in Northern California, because the statute of limitations had expired.

He will, however, be tried again for torture in the alleged attack on a 13-year-old girl in Hayward in 1991.