For the first time in New York State’s history, investigators used investigative genetic genealogy to help generate a lead and make an arrest in two rapes that occurred 23 years ago.
On Thursday, Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark announced that Jancys Santiago, 48, formerly of the Bronx and currently of Groveland, Fla., was arraigned on Nov. 15, 2023, on first-degree rape charges for the assault of a woman in Manhattan in 2000 and another in the Bronx in 2001.
A 2022 three-year, $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office for cold cases was used to fund the genetic genealogy portion of the investigation.
“After all these years, we are finally providing justice for two women who survived terrifying attacks,” said Clark. “Our Bronx victim said she had been waiting more than 20 years to hear that her alleged rapist was caught. Investigative genetic genealogy will help solve all sorts of cold cases—not limited to murders—and hold perpetrators accountable. It will also help to name our unidentified homicide victims so their relatives can have closure.”
On May 23, 2000, a 27-year-old woman came home to her Midtown apartment to discover a man inside. He forced her into her bathroom, tied her arms and feet with a wire hanger, and raped her. A DNA profile developed from evidence in the survivor’s rape kit was indicted in 2005 by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as “John Doe.”
Then, over a year later in December 2001, the same man entered a 21-year-old victim’s apartment in the Bronx while she was sleeping. He allegedly covered the victim’s face and bound her with a wire hanger and raped her. The survivor’s rape kit generated a donor profile, which matched the donor profile from the Manhattan case—telling investigators right away that these two crimes were committed by the same man.
But that man was only known as John Doe for the next 23 years.
Thanks in part to the 2022 grant, crime scene evidence from both cases was sent to a private forensic lab for investigative genetic genealogy in July 2023. In just a few months, the lab produced a name—Santiago. NYPD detectives then retrieved a water bottle the suspect left behind at his job and matched the DNA from the bottle to the DNA taken from the crime scene 23 years ago.
By mid-November 2023, Santiago was extradited, and arraigned in both the Manhattan Supreme Court and the Bronx Supreme Court.
“DNA is a powerful tool to solve cold cases and secure justice for survivors even decades after a crime takes place,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “Alongside our partners in law enforcement, we never give up on seeking accountability—particularly for such horrific and violent allegations as these.”