DNA evidence links suspect to '99, '04 Minneapolis rapes

DNA evidence has linked a 27-year-old man to two unsolved Minneapolis rape cases, according to charges filed Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court.

Last update: October 10, 2007 - 8:27 PM

DNA evidence has linked a 27-year-old man to two unsolved Minneapolis rape cases, according to charges filed Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court.

Dorian J. Olson, of Minneapolis, has been charged with multiple counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for an April 22, 1999, incident in south Minneapolis, and for a Feb. 24, 2004, incident on the city's North Side.

In the 1999 rape, the victim had been out with her friends the night before and drinking when their car broke down early the next morning, the charges said. She decided to leave her friends and look for her boyfriend when a man who approached her on a bike said he could show her where her friend lived. As she headed down a sidewalk, the man pushed her down, dragged her from the area and raped her, the charges said.

The 2004 assault took place after the victim, who was walking in the area of N. Lowry and Knox Avenues early one morning, was approached by two men in a car, the charges said.

She agreed to let them give her a ride home, but instead they drove her to a home on the 2100 block of N. 26th Avenue.

There the younger man hit her on the head with a flashlight, took her into a garage and raped her over the next hour, the charges said.

More than a year later, officials with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension found that the suspect's DNA profile from the 2004 rape matched that of the 1999 case, the charges said.

That evidence was later connected to Olson, who has numerous criminal convictions in Hennepin County, the charges said.

He is being held in the Hennepin County jail.

TOM FORD