More than two decades after three women were raped in California, the man suspected in the crimes was arrested Friday outside his Decatur home by the FBI, authorities said.
Mark Manteuffel, 59, is accused of raping three women between 1992 and 1994, California and federal officials said in a news conference Monday. Manteuffel is a retired federal corrections officer, and he was also a former Sacramento State University student and part-lime lecturer.
Sacramento police Chief Daniel Hahn said DNA evidence linked Manteuffel to the crimes.
“We knew these crimes were all committed by the same suspect because they were linked by DNA left at each of the three crime scenes,” he said in the news conference.
Channel 2 Action News
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The first victim was sexually assaulted May 5, 1992. A 52-year-old woman came to her Rosemont, California, home to find a man “lying in wait” inside her residence, Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones said.
He said the woman was sexually assaulted for three hours before the suspect left. He allegedly was armed with a knife in both incidents.
Another victim, a 22-year-old college student, was jogging to a local market in Davis, California, for dinner when she was grabbed by a masked man in January 1994, Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said. Her attacker shocked her with a Taser and dragged her away to commit “monstrous crimes,” he said.
In March of that same year, a third victim was bound and sexually assaulted by a masked intruder in her east Sacramento home.
It is not clear when Manteuffel moved to metro Atlanta. Online records show he worked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Atlanta from 2004 to 2007, earning between $73,199 and $85,350 annually. Afterward, he worked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Oklahoma City and Miami before retiring in 2014.
The three victims have been notified, and several officials said they are relieved.
Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said Manteuffel will face seven charges for the two 1992 rapes, which include four counts of rape while using a knife to cause great bodily injury, two counts of torture with the use of a knife and one count of sodomy with great bodily injury caused by a knife.
Reisig said he’s still determining how many charges he will file, but he said a charge of kidnapping during the commission of a robbery could carry a life sentence.
Manteuffel is being held in the DeKalb County Jail, where he was booked just before 6:45 p.m. Friday, records show. He is awaiting extradition to California.
Officials said their investigation remains open, and anyone with information is asked to contact one of the agencies involved.
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