DNA recovered in 2017 from attempted rape matched to South Kitsap man repeatedly accused of sexual assaults – Kitsap Sun

A 40-year-old South Kitsap man convicted earlier this year of groping one woman and exposing himself to another was charged Tuesday with sexually assaulting a woman in 2017 and for choking his mother during an argument over cleaning his room.

Neil David Chess was also suspected this summer of harassing women who were hiking in Banner Forest Heritage Park, leading to multiple calls to Kitsap County sheriff's deputies.

The new sexual assault case against Chess, attempted second-degree rape, follows repeated testing by the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab of DNA recovered from a woman who in 2017 told police a man unknown to her had sexually assaulted her beneath the Warren Avenue bridge in Bremerton.

Though the lab was unable to match the DNA recovered in the investigation when it occurred, court records said lab technicianskept retesting the sample until they found a match in March, leading a Bremerton police detectiveto obtain a sample from Chess while he was lodged in the Kitsap County Jail.

In September the crime lab reported that it found very strong support that the sample taken from Chessmatched the DNA evidence recovered from the sexual assault on the woman.

Chess had been booked into the jail in Januaryafter he was accused in two separate cases of climbing into a UPS truck and touching the driver, a woman, and going to a house to ask for a drink of water. He then went inside the house and exposed himself to the woman who had answered the door.

In June he pleaded guilty to a count of residential burglary and fourth-degree assault with sexual motivation and was sentenced to nine months in the Kitsap County Jail.

As part of the resolution of the case, Chess was not required to register as a sex offender.

However, he had been accused by two separate women of raping them in 2019, but prosecutors dismissed the charges saying they did not believe they could prove the case in court.

Over the summer, after Chess release from jail, women who hiked and jogged in Banner Forest began reporting disturbing interactions with a man who many of them believed was Chess.

At that time, the Kitsap Sun requested records of complaints about the man harassing women in the park and found deputies had not written any reports.

However, call logs obtained through the state Public Record Act showed that users of the park believed it was Chess and told deputies they repeatedly told the man to leave them alone.

On Aug.3, a log from the sheriffs office indicates a deputy may have identified Chess and told him to stop harassing women at the park.

In a case separate from the attempted second-degree rape, but also charged Tuesday in Kitsap County Superior Court, Chess mother called 911 on Monday from her residence on the 4700 block of Westway Drive SE to say her son had choked her.

There is no-contact order prohibiting Chess from having contact with his mother, but she said Chess was living with her and she was concerned about him. She described Chess as being a paranoid schizophrenic and said that he had choked her and punched her in the face.

This morning she was cleaning up his room and he just became enraged when she asked him to help clean up, a deputy wrote. His rage turned against her.

Deputies located Chess near the Southworth Ferry Terminal and arrested him. While being driven to the Kitsap County Jail, Chess admitted to choking his mother but denied punching her, according to court documents.

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DNA recovered in 2017 from attempted rape matched to South Kitsap man repeatedly accused of sexual assaults - Kitsap Sun