DNA links suspected rapist to 5 assaults

MUNCIE, Ind. -- A Muncie man suspected of being a serial rapist has been linked by DNA evidence to five sexual assaults, the latest being the rape of a 67-year-old woman.\nBrent D. Sharp, 22, has been charged in connection with only two of the five rapes in Delaware and White counties so far. He was being held without bond Monday in the Delaware County jail.\nPolice said Monday that DNA has now linked Sharp to the Oct. 2002 rape of a 67-year-old woman. In that attack, police said Sharp broke through an unlocked window into the woman's home, which is across the street from the home of one of his relatives.\nThe woman told police she was watching television when she heard her small dog barking in the kitchen. When she went to investigate, an intruder came out of her bathroom, forced her to the floor, placed duct tape around her wrists and mouth and raped her.\nSharp was arrested in May on an unrelated warrant shortly after a 7-year-old Muncie girl was raped near his home.\nDelaware County Deputy Prosecutor Mark McKinney said Monday he expects more charges to be filed against Sharp sometime this week.\n"This has been a long, drawn out process for these victims," Muncie Police Sgt. Al Williams said.\nTwo weeks ago, DNA taken from the girl raped near Sharp's home that had been entered into a national database linked that case to Sharp.\nSharp's DNA also matched a sample taken from a 14-year-old Muncie girl raped in December and another woman sexually assaulted in Monticello.\nLast week, police said Sharp's DNA matched a sample taken from a 23-year-old Muncie woman who was raped in April while her 4-year-old daughter was sleeping in the next room.