OC Man Sentenced After DNA Links Him To Rape

(CBS) SANTA ANA, Calif. An Orange County man arrested after DNA evidence linked him to the 1995 rape of a Fountain Valley woman was sentenced Friday to 31 years to life in prison.

Robert Castillo, 34, was convicted in September of forcible rape, forcible sodomy and kidnapping.

On Feb. 23, 1995, a 28-year-old woman walking home from a 7-Eleven store was grabbed from behind and forced at knife-point into a secluded area, where she was raped and sodomized, said Susan Schroeder of the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

The rape remained unsolved for seven years until evidence collected by the Fountain Valley Police Department was submitted in 2002 to a statewide DNA database by the Orange County Sheriff's Department, Schroeder said.

A positive DNA hit was made on Castillo, who was arrested in Costa Mesa on a parole violation.

He was charged with the rape on Aug. 22, 2002, Schroeder said.

Castillo was the 100th person in California to be arrested because of DNA evidence linking a suspect to a "cold case," authorities said.