22 yrs ago a juvenile was brutally raped, this month, CODIS DNA system identifies a health care executive Eric Ferguson [View all]

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Victim was age 13 or younger.



The girl was walking near Laurel Road in April 2002 when police say she was approached by a man with a gun. He allegedly ordered her into a car and sexually assaulted her at gunpoint. The girl was eventually able to escape and run to a home in the neighborhood for help. Police at the time took DNA samples, but no match was found to a suspect.

In 2022, Oakley police learned that they got a hit in CODIS, a national law enforcement database of DNA taken from convicted offenders, detainees, missing persons and unsolved cases. The CODIS match came back to a man living in the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho area, prompting Oakley detectives to begin looking into the suspect. In early May, they were able to travel to Idaho with a warrant to collect DNA from the man, 49-year-old Eric Ferguson of Rathdrum. Ferguson's sample was a "direct match to the DNA recovered during the initial investigation in 2002," police said.

According to Oakley police, Ferguson lived in Contra Costa County at the time of the crime. Until recently, he had been working as the executive director of facilities at Kootenai Health, a health care provider with services in Idaho, Washington and Montana.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/health-care-executive-arrested-bay-area-rape-19479103.php



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COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho – A man suspected of kidnapping and raping a minor in 2002 was an Executive Director of Facilities at Kootenai Health until a few months ago.

Eric Ferguson was arrested by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office in Rathdrum on Thursday night. According to the sheriff’s office, he was a suspect in a two decade old case out of Oakley, California.

Ferguson was a Executive Director of Facilities at Kootenai Health for about two years starting in 2022.

Ferguson is currently in Kootenai County jail awaiting extradition to California.

https://www.nonstoplocal.com/spokane/news/man-arrested-in-rape-and-kidnapping-case-was-vice-president-at-kootenai-health/article_6814cfc6-b7fb-5919-b6f7-14d7ca82574d.html



The CODIS notification identified a man residing in Northern Idaho. With this information, Oakley Police Detectives began coordinating with the U.S. Marshals Service and a detective from Coeur d’Alene Police Department. Oakley Police Detectives Gill and Pistello travelled to Idaho on May 12, 2024, and were assisted by the U.S. Marshals Service, Coeur d’Alene Police Department and the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office in serving a search warrant for DNA collection from the lead suspect in the case.

Detectives Gill and Pistello traveled back home and presented DNA from the lead suspect to the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Office Laboratory so it could be compared to the DNA in the sexual assault case; the DNA from the lead suspect was a direct match to the DNA recovered during the initial investigation in 2002.

On May 16, 2024, Oakley Detectives presented the case to the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office and a formal complaint was filed against the man, who is identified as Eric J. Ferguson (49, Rathdrum, Idaho). Ferguson is a former resident of the East Contra Costa County area (he lives in the area in 2002). The formal complaint was signed by a judge from the Contra Costa County Superior Court, for the charges of: Rape of an Incompetent Person, Forcible Oral Copulation and Kidnapping for Rape.

On May 16, 2024, the U.S. Marshals Service, Coeur d’Alene Police Department and Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office, utilizing their SWAT team, conducted an operation which brought Ferguson into custody. Oakley Detectives Gill and Pistello will bring Ferguson back to California later this week and book him into the Contra Costa County jail for the crimes that were committed 22 years ago.

According to Kootenai County Sheriff’s Lt. Zachary Sifford, Ferguson was 29 years old at that time and allegedly used a dangerous or deadly weapon during the commission of the crimes.

https://contracostaherald.com/idaho-man-arrested-in-22-year-old-oakley-kidnap-rape-of-girl/