ASHEVILLE A man whose rape of a Buncombe County woman went unsolved for nearly five years until a DNA test linked him to the crime will spend more than 14 years in prison.

Antonio Cedillo Morales was prosecuted for obstruction of justice in 2008 after he gave authorities a false name when he was arrested for driving while impaired, District Attorney Ron Moore said.

While in prison serving a six-year sentence on the felony obstruction charge, a sample of his DNA was entered into the national Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS.

The system linked Morales to a July 2005 Woodfin home invasion and rape case that had gone unsolved, and he was charged in March 2010 with the violent crimes. Police said he broke into a house and assaulted a woman, and the victim did not know her attacker.

Weve been aggressive for many years with people who are not truthful with the court about their identity, Moore said. And when we are able to identify who they are, we prosecute them for identity fraud or obstruction of justice.

So, (Morales) goes to prison, and they take his DNA because he was a convicted felon. If we had just let him plead to DWI, we wouldnt have convicted him of a felony.

Morales, 40, who lived on Brookdale Road in Woodfin before his arrest, pleaded guilty this week in Buncombe County Superior Court to first-degree rape, first-degree burglary and assault by strangulation.

He was sentenced to 173-217 months in state prison. Morales had been scheduled to be released on the obstruction charge in August, according to N.C. Department of Correction records.

Moore said Morales is an illegal immigrant who has been deported twice.

CODIS can generate leads in cases where biological evidence is recovered from a crime scene, and investigators can search the database to assist in the identification of suspects.

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DNA test solves Buncombe rape case