SANTA CRUZ COUNTY – On September 30, 2019, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office announced the September 25th arrest of sex assault suspect Elias Monroy, 29, of Brookdale. Monroy is charged with attempted rape and sexual assault for the January 2018 attack on a 21-year-old woman who was asleep in her vehicle outside of her friend’s home.
Monroy was identified and subsequently arrested after evidence from a sex assault exam was sent to the California Department of Justice (DOJ) for analysis.
“Extracting DNA from evidence, processing it, and running the information through databases is invaluable work done by DOJ criminalists in labs throughout California,” said California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA) President Alan Barcelona. “Would this suspect have ever been caught if not for the DNA work? Likely not. Criminalists and the work they do are a huge part of law enforcement, public safety and criminal justice. We simply could not identify suspects without the work that they do.”
According to the sheriff’s office, the victim did not know her attacker. She was successful in fighting off her attacker and activating her car alarm which caused the suspect to flee.
