A Washington State driver’s license shown in photos of a woman being sexually assaulted played a crucial role in allowing charges to be filed in a 2008 Kirkland rape case, according to court documents.
The investigative chain was laid out in charges brought Monday against Marc Patrick O’Leary.The charges accuse O’Leary, 33, of burglary, rape, kidnapping and assault in connection with an attack on a woman at an apartment on Northeast 122nd Street in Kirkland on Oct. 6, 2008.
The charges also lay out a complex series of investigative steps, however, which led to the filing of nearly 40 similar charges in Colorado.
And in perhaps one of the oddest circumstances of the investigation, part of the police work involved finding that a Lynnwood woman who police didn’t believe had been raped — and in fact led to her being charged with making false statements — turned out to really have been attacked.
In the Kirkland investigation, the work started when police began trying to solve the 2008 attack at the apartment.
At about 4 a.m. then, a woman awoke to a man standing over her with a knife. He proceeded to tie her hands with her shoelaces, attack her and take photographs, police reported.
The attacker left and the woman, 63, was able to call police, but they weren’t able to find the assailant, reporting the case “went cold” in August 2009. The shoelaces had been sent to the Washington crime lab, however, where DNA tests were done, but the results didn’t match any known individuals.
A new lead developed in April of this year, however, when Colorado investigators contacted Kirkland police about the attack here.
Colorado investigators then told how they’d been trying to solve a series of attacks in cities that included Aurora, Lakewood, Westminster and Golden.
Colorado police also were able to get DNA samples and also had noticed a suspicious vehicle near one of the victim’s homes in February 2011, according to court papers.
With that evidence, Colorado police were able to search a home where O’Leary and relatives lived. The search found more evidence, including photos of the Golden and Westminster victims.
But Colorado police reported also finding a photo of another woman, not the one attacked in Kirkland, with a Washington State driver’s license “prominently displayed in the photographs.”
That led Colorado police to contact Lynnwood police, who were able to confirm the woman had reported being sexually assaulted in 2008.
News reports in the spring of 2011 then revealed how charges had been brought against the Lynnwood woman for making a false statement, that she pleaded guilty to avoid a trial and paid a fine.
When Colorado police found the attack really did take place, the Lynnwood charges were dismissed, the fine repaid, and the case removed from records, according to news reports.
Aside from those steps, however, investigators found the name of the Kirkland victim in O’Leary’s computer, and were able to use the DNA tests from the shoelaces to match them to O’Leary’s Colorado DNA profile, leading to the charges in the Kirkland assault.
Kirkland police also determined that O’Leary was stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in the Army from November 2006 to September 2009.
O’Leary is being held in Colorado and would be returned to Washington to face the charges here after the Colorado cases are resolved.
King County prosecutors asked that bail not be allowed if O’Leary is returned here, calling him “an extreme danger to the community” who uses “surprise and fear as his weapons of choice.”
O’Leary faces lifetime sentences for the crimes in both Colorado and Washington, prosecutors added.
