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Nearly 15 years after 2 rapes, police say DNA matched man recently developed as suspect

Intelligencer Journal - 6/7/2020

On Nov. 1, 2005, Pennsylvania State Police troopers charged Charles Eugene Musser Jr. with raping two women a year apart, in 2000 and 2001, in the county’s southern end.

Only, police didn’t know his name.

Instead, the troopers charged “John Doe” and listed 13 lines, each a combination of numbers and letters: The DNA profile of the attacker from evidence collected from the victims, one 69, the other 18.

It would be more than 14 years until police linked the DNA profile to Musser.

That’s beyond the 12-year statute of limitation to prosecute rape in Pennsylvania, but there is an exception: The clock resets once an individual’s identity is determined.

About a year ago, Trooper Brian McNally took another look. Police are always looking at unsolved cases, he said.

McNally charted about 100 people whose names had ever come up as possible suspects. DNA evidence already in law enforcement databases from other crimes eliminated many.

But, aside from the John Doe DNA samples, the DNA wasn’t found in any database.

McNally and Brett Hambright, a spokesman for the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office, would not discuss specifics about what drew attention to Musser.

But Hambright said one thing was a misdemeanor from 2008 or 2009.

A reporter sought those records from Lancaster County courts was told they’re not public and may have been cleared under a clean slate law.

That would indicate that whatever the crime was, it has been closed to public inspection, although it would still be available to law enforcement.

In April, police collected Musser’s trash from outside his home on Sutton Place in Manheim Township.

A DNA sample taken from a 20-ounce Dr. Pepper bottle matched the DNA samples from the 2000 and 2001 cases, McNally said Friday.

“The beauty of those bottles is the ridges actually rip little bits of your mouth off,” making it easy to collect DNA from, he said.

Police don’t need a search warrant to gather trash, he said: Once it’s put out for collection, trash is considered abandoned.

Musser, 39, fatally shot himself Wednesday when troopers arrived to serve him a warrant.

The charges

Musser would have been 20 when police said he raped the first victim, a 69-year-old woman. She has since died.

According to charging documents filed in 2005 against John Doe and amended Tuesday with Musser’s name, about 6 p.m.Nov. 10, 2000, Musser forced his way into her Providence Township home.

The second happened almost a year to the day later.

About 6 p.m., Nov. 8, 2001, the woman was riding a bike in East Drumore Township when her attacker hit her with a stick or bat several times in the back of the head, the woman told police. He then dragged her into a field, sexually assaulted and raped her.

The women described their attacker similarly.

The first attack happened about five miles from Musser’s home; the second attack, about three.

In the spring of 2002, a state police lab matched DNA from both cases. That November, state police issued warnings in case the rapist had some reason for attacking at that time of the year.

In 2005, a $2,000 reward was offered. A trooper told a reporter then that police had had gotten many leads, but nothing to make an arrest. That’s also when police filed the John Doe charges.

Who was Musser

Court and public records offer a glimpse into Musser.

He graduated Solanco High School in 1999. He likely attended what’s now Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. He applied for a marriage license in the fall of 2013. He had at least one child.

On Jan. 5, 2001, a woman obtained a temporary protection from abuse order against him. In it, she said he had forced her into sexual contact five days earlier. He punched her in the face and head, spit in her face and tried to keep her keys.

The woman made reference to Musser being on medication to control his anger but not taking it two days before.

“Many times over the (past) three months he has choked me, punched me, hit me and threatened me. I am very afraid of him,” the woman wrote.

And in January 2002, Musser called a Lancaster city woman anonymously and made lewd comments. When police traced the call to him, Musser said it would not happen again, that he’d been going through some problems and “had some medications changed.”

Efforts to interview Musser’s family were unsuccessful.

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