DNA database helps Lacey police make arrest in rape case

BY JEREMY PAWLOSKI | Staff writer Published March 05, 2013 Modified March 05, 2013

Lacey police arrested a 32-year-old man on suspicion of rape Monday, after DNA evidence collected from a woman after an alleged sexual assault matched the suspect's DNA profile, which had already been entered into the state's Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, court papers state.

Jerome Lamont Shumate, 32, of Olympia, was ordered held on suspicion of second-degree rape during a court hearing Tuesday. His bail was set at $50,000.

According to court papers:

The alleged rape occurred in August in Lacey, after the accuser met a man on an Intercity Transit bus and he invited her to his trailer in the woods. The woman reported the unknown male had raped her in the woods near the 8600 block of Martin Way East in Lacey. The woman reported the rape immediately afterward. Detectives collected DNA evidence from the rape, and submitted it to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab.

In February, Lacey Police Detective Bev Reinhold received a report from the crime lab indicating that the DNA evidence collected from the alleged rape matched Shumate's DNA profile, which had already been entered into the CODIS system. Shumate had previously been convicted of a third-degree rape in 1997, when he was a juvenile.

Police contacted Shumate at his workplace on Monday, and he denied having sex with anyone other than his girlfriend since July. After he was told of the DNA evidence implicating him as having had sex with the accuser, he continued to deny having sex with her. After about an hour of questioning, Shumate changed his story and said he had had sex with an unknown woman, but he said it was consensual.

Jeremy Pawloski: 360-754-5445 jpawloski@theolympian.com

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DNA database helps Lacey police make arrest in rape case