A California district attorney's office said they are bringing charges connected to six cold cases after clearing a 30-year backlog of untested sexual assault kits.
In a news release, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday that out of the 6,480 sexual assault kits that were backlogged, 3,791 of them were untested.
"Each of those cases was subsequently reviewed, and a total of 1,705 were determined to be eligible to be tested by the Orange County Crime Lab," the district attorney’s office said.
After they were tested, hundreds of new DNA profiles were uploaded to law enforcement databases across the U.S. This allowed criminal charges to be filed in six cold cases.
One of those cold cases resulted in authorities identifying a man who raped a woman in 1993 in Stanton.
According to the press release, the woman was sitting in a car with another man outside her home when the suspect, pretending to be a police officer, forced his way into the vehicle and sexually assaulted the woman.
In November 2019, authorities were able to identify Michael Ry Armijo as the suspect after DNA from the rape kit was tested, the DA's office said.
According to the statement, Armijo was convicted last February of two felony counts of kidnap to commit robbery and enhancements for the personal use of a firearm and was given the maximum possible sentence of 24 years to life in state prison.
The DA's office said that Armijo was not charged with rape because the statute of limitations had expired.
