Cops: Rape at Hollywood motel solved by DNA

Posted: Published on April 24th, 2014

This post was added by Dr P. Richardson

DNA evidence has linked a Hollywood man to the rape of a woman who was targeted while taking trash out to a motel dumpster, police say.

Jamal Hanna, 28, was charged with sexual assault and kidnapping after a lab report "stated that with reasonable scientific certainty" he was considered the source of the DNA found on the woman who was raped, a Hollywood police report said.

Police responded to the sexual assault shortly before 3 a.m. Sept. 27, 2013, after the woman escaped from her attacker through a bathroom window that she broke and crawled through, the report said. She managed to convince Hanna to allow her to shower after the assault and cut her thigh badly on glass shards as she fled, the report said.

Police found her in the 1600 block of North Federal Highway near the motel where the rape happened, officials said.

The woman's ordeal began when she was approached by a stranger while she tossed garbage in the dumpster. Hanna put his hands around her throat and forced her to a darkened area behind the motel, where he made her perform a sex act, the report said.

Hanna then took her to a motel room where he forced her to have sex and sodomized her, police said. She persuaded him to give her time in the bathroom to clean up. She escaped through the window she shattered while wearing only a bath towel, according to police. Along with a large cut on her inner thigh, the woman also had bruising on her neck and arms.

After being treated for her injuries, DNA samples were taken from her at the sexual assault treatment center.

Last month, Hanna, who was considered a possible suspect, consented to allowing police to take DNA samplings from him. When compared, Hanna's DNA matched up to the DNA found on the woman, according to a crime analysis lab report received on April 15, authorities said.

Hanna was arrested Monday. During his first-appearance court hearing Tuesday, he told the judge he had been living in South Florida for about a year and three months and was currently employed as a mechanic.

Hanna was ordered held without bond "based on the level of violence, based on the facts of the case," said Broward Judge John "Jay" Hurley.

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Cops: Rape at Hollywood motel solved by DNA

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