SILVER SPRING, Md. (WUSA) -- Montgomery County Police have announced that they have solved a 25-year-old rape case thanks to a DNA match found earlier this month.
Police say a 20-year-old woman was raped in her apartment in the Greencastle Woods neighborhood of Silver Spring on May 31, 1987 after awaking to find a male armed with a knife inside her apartment. The male threatened her with the knife and then raped her. He then fled from the apartment.
The woman was taken to a hospital and DNA evidence was collected but no suspects were developed.
Then, in February of this year, detectives were reviewing unsolved cases involving DNA evidence, according to police. The DNA evidence from the 1987 case was submitted to Bode Technology, and a suspect DNA profile was developed. Detectives got that information and then gave the DNA profile to the MCP Crime Lab. The DNA was set to be loaded into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).
Police say on July 2, 2012, the MCP Crime Lab told detectives that the DNA profile was a match to convicted rapist William David Trice. Trice committed two rapes in Anne Arundel County, Md. in 1988. Detectives learned that Thrice had committed suicide in jail after being convicted in one of the Anne Arundel rape cases in January 2010.
Thrice is now connected to three formerly cold cases: one in Montgomery County and two in Anne Arundel County. Police are now asking surrounding jurisdictions to review any unsolved rape cases from the mid- to late 1980s due to the similarities in cases and the short time frame.
If you have any information about these cases, please contact the Major Crimes Division at 240-773-5070. If you believe you may have been a victim of Trice and never made a report to police to call them at 240-773-5070.