TACOMA, Wash. — DNA has linked a man who is already serving time for a rape to an unsolved 1995 child rape in Buckley.
Donald Schneider, 53, is charged with abducting a 9-year-old girl from a school bus stop in 1995, binding her hands with duct tape and raping her.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the girl was walking to her bus stop at around 8 a.m. in late September of 1995 when Schneider stopped to ask her what time it was.
The girl told investigators Schneider "dragged her and pulled her hair and pushed her into the car and said 'get down and stay down or else I’ll cut your head open.'”
She said he drove for a long time before stopping in a wooded area where she was sexually assaulted.
Before letting her go he warned, “Don’t tell or I’ll come back cuz I know where you live and I’ll kill your family and even you," prosecutors said. He also told her “I’m a drunk old man and my brain needs help and I’m going to leave you here so someone can pick you up," prosecutors said.
She was found walking near Eatonville about two hours later by a woman who took her to sheriff's deputies to file a report.
Schneider sentenced to life in prison in 2007 after he kidnapped and sexually assaulted a woman at knifepoint in Tacoma. In that assault, Schneider bound the victim with duct tape and told her "I'm a sick bastard" before turning her loose.
He is currently incarcerated at Walla Walla State Penitentiary.
The 9-year-old's clothing was collected at the hospital after the assault, but the case went unsolved until May of 2012 when a cold case detective sent the victim’s underwear to the Washington State Patrol crime lab where they matched the Schneider's DNA to genetic material left on the underwear. The probability that the DNA does not match the defendant is estimated at 1 in 160 quadrillion, the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office said.
“While the defendant is currently serving a life sentence for a different crime, we are prosecuting him for two reasons. One, to obtain justice for this victim on this case, and two, so we have an insurance policy to keep a dangerous offender in prison where he belongs," Pierce County Prosector Mark Lindquist said.