Detectives are asking for the public’s help in locating a 24-year-old man genetically linked to a 2001 attack on a 10-year-old Mesa girl.
Authorities said that on May 29, 2001, Luis Alberto Robles-Corrales broke into the girl’s home in the 400 block of East Second Avenue, and he is suspected of choking her into unconsciousness — fleeing only when she woke up and screamed.
Kim Fiorucci, a forensic chemist with Mesa Police Department’s crime lab, said DNA evidence left at the scene matched DNA evidence left at the scene of a June 2001 burglary in Mesa.
Robles-Corrales was convicted in connection with that burglary and was deported, said detective Tim Gaffney, police spokesman.
A warrant has been issued for Robles-Corrales charging him with aggravated assault, burglary, kidnapping and public sexual indecency.
Robles-Corrales is Hispanic, 5 feet 10 inches tall and 160 pounds. He has black hair, brown eyes and a small scar on his left cheek.
Anyone with information is asked to call the police department at (480) 644-2211.
Mesa crime lab personnel are having a great deal of success with the Combined DNA Index System, a national database filled with DNA samples from convicted felons going back nearly a decade, Fiorucci said. When DNA is obtained from a crime scene and entered into the system, the DNA is matched to a suspect 30 percent of the time.
