Prince George's Man Charged In Connection To Rape Cold Case from 2014: Prosecutor

HARFORD COUNTY, MD — A Prince George's County man has been arraigned on charges stemming from a 2014 cold case involving the sexual assault of a stranger.

On July 6, 2014, Dawayne Joseph Spriggs, 37, of Washington D.C. and Prince George’s County, ran into the victim near the Minnesota Avenue Metro station around 1 a.m. Spriggs followed her and physically and sexually assaulted her in an alley. After the assault was over, the victim reported the assault to police and underwent a sexual assault examination, including a rape kit. The evidence was timely tested for DNA in 2014 and entered into a national database, according to prosecutors.

In 2016, the database reported a match between the DNA profile obtained from the rape kit and another sexual assault offense that had been reported in Anne Arundel County in 2013. In 2023, detectives with MPD’s Cold Case Sexual Assault Unit obtained a lead on the assailant’s identity that led them to lawfully collect DNA samples from Spriggs. These DNA samples were tested by both law enforcement entities and resulted in a match to both rape kits, court documents showed.

On Sept. 13, a District of Columbia grand jury returned an indictment charging Spriggs in the D.C. cold case with two counts of first-degree sexual abuse and two counts of third-degree sexual abuse. If convicted, Spriggs faces a maximum penalty of 30 years’ imprisonment and/or a fine of $125,000, followed by not less than five years’ supervised release, and would be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his lifetime. His trial is scheduled to start Oct. 12.

The defendant also is currently charged by criminal complaint in Anne Arundel County for unrelated offenses reported in Maryland in 2013.