APD crime scientist connected DNA dots

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The forensic scientist who connected a Peeping Tom suspect in Colorado with Albuquerque's Ether Man rape cases says it was exciting to discover the DNA evidence matched up.

Robert Howard Bruce, 47, was arrested late last month Pueblo, Colo., after allegedly trying to use a propane tank to blow up the home of a police officer scheduled to testify against him in the Peeping Tom case.

“I discovered that the profile from Mr. Bruce’s sample matched the DNA profiles we had from multiple cases,” said Laura Pearn, a forensic scientist at the Albuquerque Police Department’s Metro Crime Lab.

After interviewing the suspect’s family members, Pueblo investigators learned Bruce may have ties to criminal activities in Albuquerque.

A DNA sample taken from the propane tank found at the Colorado crime scene was eventually sent to Albuquerque for analysis.

It was one of more than 20 samples Pearn has tested over the years trying to find a match to Ether Man, a serial rapist whose case file began with a sexual assault in 1991. The rapist earned his nickname be placing a chemically treated cloth over his victims' mouths and noses to incapacitate them.

“If it matches, it matches. If it doesn’t match, it doesn’t match,” Pearn told KRQE News 13.

Finally, sitting at her desk inside her Albuquerque office, Pearn identified key similarities in Bruce’s DNA and the DNA samples from the serial rapes that had been sitting in APD’s evidence room for almost 20 years.

“It was very exciting to see that this profile did match," Pearn said.

Forensic scientists knew early on the DNA evidence left behind in five Albuquerque sexual assaults came from the same person. They just didn’t know who.

In 2000 police and prosecutors secured an indictment against an unidentified John Doe known only by his DNA. The move was a first in New Mexico intended protect the case from the 10-year statute of limitations.

Now authorities are preparing to transfer the indictment to the name Robert Howard Bruce.

“I am absolutely sure, (and) have absolute confidence not only in the abilities of our scientists, but in the technology, that this is the individual,” crime lab commander Paul Feist said.