WASHINGTON — Authorities have arrested a suspect in the Potomac River Rapist cold case, a man who is believed to have attacked at least 10 women in and around D.C. between 1991 and 1998.
D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said Thursday in a press conference that 60-year-old Giles Daniel Warrick was arrested in Conway, South Carolina on Nov. 12, after forensic genealogy identified him as a possible suspect. He will be extradited to the District and charged with first-degree murder, and will face additional charges stemming from the multiple sexual assaults he allegedly committed.
The last known victim to the suspect was 29-year-old Christine Mirzayan. She was a National Academy of Sciences intern who was walking home from a cookout in Georgetown on August 1, 1998 but she never made it home.
Newsham said that at around 10 p.m., Mirzayan was walking in the 3600 block of Canal Road Northwest when she was attacked, and pulled into a wooden area where she was sexually assaulted and brutally beaten. An autopsy revealed that in addition to being sexually assaulted, she was struck multiple times in the head with a large rock.
Two witnesses eventually told police they had seen Mirzayan walking along a dark road and noticed a man following her. According to police, the witnesses assisted them with a sketch of the man which was age-enhanced and used to assist in his arrest.
Officials believe the Potomac River Rapist had previously attacked at least nine women before Mirzayan's murder. Several victims were attacked in their homes, including an 18-year-old babysitter and a mother whose infant was in the home at the time of the attack.
A task force made up of Montgomery County Police, the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office and D.C. police had been developed over the years to capture what they believed to be a single assailant in multiple attacks.
Officials used information available publicly via genealogy websites to match the DNA they had on file to a family member of Warrick. Seven attacks have been linked by DNA.
Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones said a "DNA perfect match" was found in six cases in Montgomery County, with two additional cases in Montgomery County linked to Warrick. Newsham also referenced the sexual assault of a 58-year-old woman that occurred in the Palisades on July 20, 1996.
Jones said that at the time of the attacks, Warrick had a landscaping company and worked as a contractor for a utility company. Police believe he had just recently moved to South Carolina.
"The only thing we can offer to the victims is to find the person responsible, and there's a certain amount of satisfaction there," Newsham said. "But I don't think we'll ever be able to take away the pain that these victims suffered."
