A thief fingered as a rapist — thanks to DNA — when he was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen property in Riverside two years ago was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in prison.
Kevin Lawrence Saint John, 45, raped two women.
When he was arrested in Riverside County, authorities took his DNA and matched it to two, decade-old rapes. Jurors also convicted him of sentence- enhancing allegations of committing a sexual assault against multiple victims and rape during a kidnapping.
On Aug. 10, 2004, Saint John forced a 21-year-old clerk at a Westminster 7-Eleven into a freezer where he raped her. He shielded his face from cameras by wearing a baseball cap or carrying boxes in front of his face.
The other rape, in Riverside County, was prosecuted in Santa Ana. Saint John offered a ride to a 21-year-old woman at a pay phone in a Walmart parking lot in Cathedral City on the night of Sept. 7, 2004 or the next morning. With the woman in the car, he drove them to a deserted construction site in Highland and raped her.
— City News Service