DNA databank aids police in historic sex assault case

If John Joseph Macindoe hadn't stalked a woman he was infatuated with, breaking into her apartment with a rape kit, his genetic footprint would never have been placed on the national DNA databank.

However, his 2020 conviction for that crime came with an automatic order he surrender a sample of his DNA, which linked him to a 2014 Calgary sexual assault, court heard Monday.

Crown prosecutor Rose Greenwood told provincial court Judge Allan Fradsham that Macindoe was ordered to provide a sample of his DNA after he was convicted of breaking into the home of a city woman with the intent to rape her.

That crime was thwarted by the victim's call for help using her smart watch and police arrived at her home and nabbed Macindoe red-handed before he could sexually assault his terrified victim.

According to a statement of agreed facts read in by Greenwood before Fradsham, Macindoe seemed similarly fixated with his 2014 victim.

Reading from the court exhibit signed by Macindoe and defence counsel Rebecca Snukal, the prosecutor said the victim awoke around 4:05 a.m. on June 23, 2014, to find a man standing over top of her inside her Braeside bedroom.

The victim screamed and the man covered her mouth with one hand and groped her breast over her shirt with his other.

“The male pulled her duvet down and got on the bed, straddling her,” Greenwood said.

“As he did so, (the victim) pulled her legs from under the duvet and kicked his torso as hard as she could with both feet, managing to knock him backwards.”

The victim then ran to another room and locked the door before police were called. A bottle of lubricant was found on the victim's bedroom floor and processed for DNA, Greenwood said.

Fradsham accepted a joint submission by Greenwood and Snukal to hand Macindoe a one-year sentence consecutive to the 7 1/2-year term he was handed in the rape kit case, to be followed by three years of probation.

Before sentencing Macindoe the judge heard a statement from the victim, read in by Greenwood.

In the statement, the woman detailed how she continues to periodically wake up paralyzed with fear that someone is in her room.

“In these episodes I can't scream, I can't move and worst of all I can't wake up for what seems like minutes,” she said.