A match from a national DNA database lead to an arrest in a 2004 rape in which the woman was attacked at knifepoint in a Columbia laundry room, Howard County police said.
Gary Sental Taylor, 30, of Norwalk, Conn., who was arrested last month in that state, faces first- and second-degree rape charges for a rape that occurred Aug. 6, 2004, at the Grande Point Apartments in the 5700 block of Stevens Forest Road in Columbia, police said.
After the incident, police collected DNA evidence from the woman's clothing and sent it to the Maryland State Police crime lab to develop a DNA profile. The profile did not match at the time, but state police check the unidentified DNA profiles against a national database weekly, and the match to Taylor's was detected about six years later, police said.
Taylor's DNA was collected after his release from an 18-month stint in jail for a 2007 child endangerment felony conviction. That sample was collected in 2008 and was recently entered into a national database, which matched the 2004 rape case in Columbia, police said.
Howard County detectives contacted police in Connecticut, who arrested Taylor at his job at a fitness center. He resisted arrest and was charged locally before being extradited to Maryland on June 9. He is being held at Howard County Detention Center without bond.