DNA match linked to Thermalito rape and robbery case

The DNA collected from a 1999 brutal rape and robbery case in Thermalito has been matched to a prisoner convicted of homicide and robbery and who is now serving time in a Plumas County state prison.

Butte County Sheriff's detectives were elated at receiving this news Thursday from the California Department of Justice DNA laboratory in Richmond.

Based on this DNA match and further investigation by Butte County Sheriff's detectives, the charges of Robbery, Burglary, Assault, Battery, Mayhem, and Rape are being brought against Kevin Glen Rikard, 24, who is serving a 22 years to life sentence at the Kern Valley State Prison, and additional charges may also be filed.

It was 2:23 a.m. on September 19, 1999, when Butte County Sheriff's deputies responded to a 9-1-1 call for help from a 62-year-old woman, who lived on the 1000 block of Thermalito Avenue in Oroville. She said she had just woke up after being beaten in her residence. Sheriff's Deputy and now Detective Tom Dryden arrived at the residence and found the victim in bed.

She had been brutally beaten and had severe head injuries, and it was suspected she had also been sexually assaulted. The victim was taken by ambulance to the Oroville Hospital where she was listed in serious condition with base skull and facial fractures and severe bruises, according to Detective Dryden. A sexual assault exam was also conducted on the victim.

The victim's purse was missing, and it wasn't until a year after the violent crime that some children found the victim's purse in the field behind the 1600 block of Oro Dam Boulevard West, Dryden said. The victim's identification was still in the purse.

This violent sexual assault and robbery case had remained unsolved for the past six years even though investigators, deputies, and detectives had spent numerous days and nights working around the clock and investigating all possible leads, Dryden said. DNA samples were collected from several people in the hopes of finding a match.

Then last Thursday, October 26, 2006, the Butte County Sheriff's Office received the information from the DNA laboratory that a DNA specimen from the 1999 violent sexual assault and robbery case matched that of Kevin Glen Rikard.

Rikard, who was 17-years-old at the time of the violent assault, was not known to the victim, who is now 71-years-old, Detective Dryden said.

Rikard's DNA was obtained after he was convicted of a homicide and robbery in Plumas County in 2004. Upon receiving the news from the DNA laboratory, Detective Dryden served a DNA search warrant on Rikard at the Kern Valley State Prison on Tuesday.

After interviewing Rikard in prison and with the information obtained from the DNA laboratory, the Butte County Sheriff's Office requested the additional charges be brought against Rikard.

"Everyone who worked on this case in the Sheriff's Office was touched by it," Dryden said. "Sheriff Reniff stayed on this case and would continually ask me about it and advised ways to investigate it. And, Detectives Vicki Coots, Dick Waugh, Lt. John Kuhn (then Sgt.), and Detective Kory Honea all worked on this case over the years," he said.

"We had no leads or clues, but we had the DNA sample. There were many people in the Sheriff's Office who spent nights working and countless hours and months on this case. We are all so delighted to receive this news about a match to the DNA in this case," Dryden said.

Detective Dryden is continuing the investigation, and he discovered Rikard lived on Fresno Avenue in Thermalito with his step mom and dad and within one mile of the victim's residence at the time of the violent assault in 1999.

The DNA search for a match was run repeatedly at the request of the Butte County Sheriff's Office and was being conducted on a weekly basis.

Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey explained that Proposition 69 ("The DNA Fingerprint, Unsolved Crime and Innocence Protection Act") was passed by voters and became effective on November 3, 2004. The Act requires those arrested for felonies to give a DNA sample. The Act served to expand and modify the state law concerning the collection and use of criminal offender DNA samples and palm print impressions. It also gives the California Attorney General's Office, California Department of Justice, and other state and local agencies the responsibility of implementing the new law. Prior to Prop. 69, all inmates in prison were required to provide DNA samples.

Proposition 69 was based upon "a critical and urgent need to provide law enforcement officers and agencies with the latest scientific technology available for accurately and expeditiously identifying, apprehending, arresting, and convicting criminal offenders and exonerating persons wrongly suspected or accused of crime," the Act reads in part.

The purpose of the Act includes: "Law enforcement should be able to use the DNA Database and Data Bank Program to substantially reduce the number of unsolved crimes; to help stop serial crime by quickly comparing DNA profiles of qualifying persons and evidence samples with as many investigations and cases as necessary to solve crime and apprehend perpetrators; to exonerate persons wrongly suspected or accused of crime; and to identify human remains," according to the California Attorney General's website. The Act also helps to identify missing and unidentified persons.

The California Department of Justice, Division of Law Enforcement, Bureau of Forensic Services (BFS) gives DNA typing support to law enforcement agencies for the DNA Data Bank. The BFS Crime Labs and DNA programs are accredited by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors. There are 17 local crime labs and five BFS labs that participate in the California DNA Data Bank Program (CAL-DNA) and the National DNA Index System (NDIS) as part of the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).

According to the California DOJ's 2006 quarterly report on the CAL-DNA Data Bank Program, as of June 30, 2006 and since the beginning of this program, the total number of DNA samples received and logged are 776,119.

The total number of qualifying DNA profiles uploaded to CAL-DNA Data Bank for the quarter period from April 1, 2006 to June 30, 2006 is 70,203.

The total number of "hits" (DNA matches as of June 30, 2006) in California is 2,450 and the investigations aided by the DNA Index system is 2,692.

For more on Proposition 69 and the collection and use of DNA in criminal cases, see the California Attorney General's Web site at: www.caag.state.ca.us/