Accused rapist back in jail, charged in 2010 sex assault
AG: Rape kit went untested for 8 years, but DNA matched
A convicted sexual predator is back behind bars after his DNA was matched to a rape kit that went untested for nearly a decade.
Victor Gonzales, 43, is charged with criminal sexual penetration, kidnapping and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon in connection with the 2010 case.
Investigators with the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office arrested Gonzales late Thursday and booked him into the Metropolitan Detention Center.
The AG’s Office has filed a motion to detain Gonzales until trial.
In the 2010 incident, a woman told authorities a man abducted, bound and raped her at knifepoint in Northwest Albuquerque.
AG’s Office spokesman Matt Baca said the rape kit remained untested for eight years and, once tested, came back as a match for Gonzales.
“The defendant is a true sexual predator — a serial rapist,” the state’s pretrial detention motion says. “DNA evidence proves that he preyed upon (the victim) with the goal of physically and sexually assaulting her.”
According to court records, Gonzales has been accused of multiple sexual assaults and convicted of charges in one, serving two years in jail.
In July 2012, Gonzales was indicted after allegedly kidnapping, torturing and raping a homeless woman for two days before she escaped. Those charges were dismissed due to issues with video evidence in the case.
The next year, Gonzales was indicted again, this time on 40 charges that covered five assaults from 2010 to 2012. Gonzales pleaded no contest to the lesser charges and was ordered to serve two years.
Having already been behind bars for two years awaiting trial, he was released.
Gonzales came to the attention of authorities in December 2019 when DNA taken in the 2010 rape was finally tested and investigators tracked down the victim.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court:
The woman told agents the assailant hit her over the head with a knife and abducted her off a street in Northwest Albuquerque.
During the attack, she said, he told her things — details about her daughter — that made her believe he had been stalking her. The woman said she believed he had “done this before” because of his calmness and the lack of door and window handles on the passenger side of the car.
The man repeatedly beat, strangled and raped the woman, who “thought she was going to die and did her best to do everything he wanted her to do to stay alive.”
In March, investigators met with Gonzales, who denied the allegation but provided saliva for DNA, which matched the 2010 rape kit.