After nearly 30 years, North Texas police charge man with sexually assaulting woman, child
Denton police arrested a 53-year-old man in two sexual assault and child sexual assault cold cases nearly 30 years after the rapes occurred in 1993 and 1997, according to a news release from police.
Marcus Deshaun Johnson was connected to the two cases through DNA evidence collected at the time, according to the news release. Police announced his arrest Tuesday.
Police said Johnson sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl at a park in the 2000 block of West Windsor Drive on Oct. 21, 1993, while she was waiting there for other members of her cross-country team. Then on Sept. 17, 1997, the same detective investigating the first case was called to the park after a woman said she was sexually assaulted while on a walk.
Investigators determined the two cases were connected but were unable to identify any suspects, according to the release. It wasn’t until 1998 that DNA tests from the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab were analyzed and found to have come from the same source. The results of the DNA tests were entered into a database and have been continuously searched since 1999, but there were no hits until this year.
A statewide DNA search conducted this year indicated the rapist was likely related to a person who had been arrested in another case, and Johnson was then identified as a person of interest, police said.
The survivors’ description of their attacker matched Johnson, who had been arrested on unrelated charges in Denton in 1993 and was now living in Las Vegas, police said.
Las Vegas police and the FBI were able to obtain a DNA sample from Johnson and concluded that Johnson’s DNA “could not be excluded as a contributor” to the DNA samples collected during the investigations in 1993 and 1997.
Johnson was indicted on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and three counts of sexual assault on June 29.
Denton police in the news release credit the arrest to the work of current and retired detectives, cooperation from the sexual assault survivors, advances in technology and assistance from other agencies. A National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative grant also provided funding to support Denton police efforts to solve sexual assault cold cases.