In October, Fairfax County police charged a 29-year-old Maryland man with committing a burglary, seven years ago, in Centreville. And now the case against him is moving forward in the legal system.
He is Randy Gonzales, of 11310 Cherry Hill Road in Beltsville. And in an Oct. 30 affidavit for a warrant to obtain DNA samples from him, police Det. Mitchell Motafches, detailed the case against him. The female occupant of the burglarized home has since moved away, but Centre View is not identifying her since she’s a victim.
THE OFFENSE occurred Dec. 18, 2000, at a townhouse at 6141 Strasburg Drive in The Meadows community. While the woman was away, two people broke a rear bedroom window to gain entry and then stole cash and several pieces of jewelry.
However, wrote Motafches, one of the intruders cut himself on the window’s broken glass, and police later found blood around that window and on the carpet and collected both blood and carpet samples for evidence.
The samples were analyzed at the state forensics lab and, wrote Motafches, "A subsequent comparison against the Virginia DNA Databank [allegedly showed that] the collected DNA sample was consistent with the DNA record of Randy Gonzales."
Police then wanted to obtain DNA from Gonzales to make a direct comparison and, on Nov. 7, 2002, they obtained arrest warrants charging him with burglary and grand larceny. But all attempts to find him were unsuccessful until Oct. 15 of this year.
He was then arrested in Fairfax County on the outstanding warrants and police later obtained a sample of his DNA. Last Wednesday, Dec. 12, in General District Court, the grand larceny charge was dropped. But Judge Ian O'Flaherty certified Gonzales' burglary charge to the grand jury for possible indictment.