DNA Match Puts Man on Trial for Rape in Riverside

She was just 17 when a stranger raped her in a dark alley near the downtown Riverside bus depot, authorities say.

On Monday, seven years later, she took the witness stand and stared at the man charged with the crime.

Darryl Joseph Tavie faces rape, kidnapping and robbery charges and is the first person in Riverside County to be identified through a DNA match in the California Department of Justice’s Cold Hit program.

The state database includes the DNA profiles of 245,000 felons and has become an important tool for detectives working on unsolved crimes.

“[Tavie] almost got away with raping and kidnapping, but he got caught -- his DNA caught him,” Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda Dunn told jurors in her opening statement.

The defense contends the sex was consensual.

The alleged victim, now 24, testified that she was raped by a man who struck up a conversation with her in the bus station.

She said she walked outside and was grabbed above the elbow by the man, who led her away from the area. She said he told her not to say anything and not to scream and pressed what she said she thought was a gun or knife into her back and led her to the dark alley.

“I didn’t know where to go,” the woman testified, sobbing.

“He was stronger than I was. He told me to stay quiet. He put me on my back, held my shoulders down and got on top of me ... he raped me.”

She said the man also stole an estimated $60 from her purse, money she earned as a $5-an-hour pizza restaurant worker.

She was examined afterward, and nurses collected semen left by the man.

Riverside police last year sent that evidence to the Department of Justice lab in Richmond, Calif., for comparison in the Cold Hit database.

In March 2003, analysts informed Riverside police that the semen matched a DNA sample taken from Tavie, who pleaded guilty in 1986 to raping two women from Riverside and attempting to rape two others.

Tavie was sentenced to 21 years in prison for those crimes and was released in June 1997.

He faces a life sentence if convicted in this case.

Eric Isaac, Tavie’s attorney, told jurors Tavie had consensual sex with the girl.

“She was supplementing that pizza income by turning tricks, prostituting, and the only reason she said rape was because Mr. Tavie didn’t pay her the money he promised her,” Isaac told jurors. “The issue is not his DNA.”

A spokeswoman for California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said the number of matches has increased dramatically since the Cold Hit program debuted in 2000 with 11 hits.

Through July of this year, the program has had 848 hits, spokeswoman Hallye Jordan said.

“The more evidence we get sent to us, the more crimes we’ll solve,” Jordan said.