CENTER CITY, Minn. — Investigators used DNA from a cigarette butt to potentially link a North Branch man to two separate sexual assaults.
Donald Edmond Warren was arrested and charged earlier this month in connection to an assault in Stacy, Minnesota in 2010 and another in Lindstrom, Minnesota in 2017. He's charged with first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct in the 2010 case and attempted criminal sexual conduct in 2017.
According to the criminal complaint, a 26-year-old woman was raped after walking home from a restaurant on May 9, 2010 in Stacy. At the time, the DNA collected didn't match with any suspects, however, on Nov. 30, 2023, an investigator received a lead about Warren, who was living in Stacy at the time of the assault. Authorities were able to get Warren's DNA from a discarded cigarette butt outside of his North Branch apartment.
Court documents say that the DNA profile obtained from the cigarette butt is consistent with the DNA gathered back in 2010. Prosecutors go on to claim Warren's DNA could also be linked to another assault in 2017 in Lindstrom, where a woman said she was assaulted while walking home from a local event.
Warren was arrested on Dec. 15, 2023 outside a business in Stacy, Minnesota. He made his first court appearance on Dec. 18, 2023 and has since been released on bond. Warren's next court appearance is set for Mar. 11, 2024.
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