Thief Gets 40 Years To Life In Prison After DNA Links Him To 2 Rapes
SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — A thief who was linked by DNA to two rapes in 2004 was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in prison.
Kevin Lawrence Saint John, 45, was initially arrested in Riverside on suspicion of receiving stolen property. While in custody, authorities took his DNA and came up a match to two, decade-old rapes, police said.
Jurors also found true two sentence-enhancing allegations of committing a sexual assault against multiple victims and rape during a kidnapping.
On Aug. 10, 2004, a 21-year-old clerk at a Westminster 7-Eleven was forced into a freezer and raped. The rapist, now identified as Saint John, shielded his face from cameras by wearing a baseball cap or carrying boxes in front of his face.
The second rape Saint John was found guilty of happened in Riverside County, but was prosecuted in Santa Ana. Saint John offered a ride to a 21-year-old woman at a pay phone in a Walmart parking lot in Cathedral City overnight on Sept. 7, 2004. With the woman in the car, he drove them to a deserted construction site in Highland and raped her.
(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)