An alleged serial sex assailant was arrested this morning as a result of a cross match DNA “hit” on a member of the suspect’s family. The assailant is suspected of multiple sexual assaults that occurred between 2014 and 2019.
Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramey and Tehama County District Attorney Matt Rogers announced that offers from the Chico Police Department, the Red Bluff Police Department, and the California Department of Justice arrested Steven Craig Michael Haskins, 36, this morning.
“In what would otherwise have remained cold case sexual assaults in Northern California, the use of familial DNA search not only led to the suspect’s arrest, but ensured a dangerous sexual assailant is off the streets and unable to victimize another women today. The identification of Haskins would not have been possible without the familial DNA search DOJ,” Ramsey and Rogers said.
“This was a joint effort with dedicated detectives and the expert forensics team at the Department of Justice,” the district attorneys added.
The familial search process involves searching the assailant DNA against the state’s convicted offender database to identify potential relatives in the database. Haskins’ DNA had been previously recovered from two sexual assaults in Chico and one sexual assault in Red Bluff between 2014-2019. Although his DNA was recovered in each case, he remained unidentified because the sexual assault DNA samples were not known to be associated with him as he had no known DNA sample in the state’s system.
However, the DNA of one of Haskins’ family members, who has been convicted of a felony, was in the state’s DNA databank. A familiar search was conducted and DOJ established a possible familial connection between the family member and the DNA collected from the three sexual assaults. That connection was used to identify and arrest Haskins after his DNA was obtained by DOJ agents who had been surveilling him.
Familial DNA searches are only used in limited situations where a violent crime has been committed, there is a serious risk to a public safety and all other investigative leads have been exhausted.
Republished courtesy of Tehama County District Attorney’s Office. Photo credit: Tehama County District Attorney’s Office.