A 47-year-old man Omak man, who last month went missing after telling his wife he was headed to a store in Oroville, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of the rape and homicide of one woman and rape and attempted homicide of another woman in the south end of town.
Omak Police Chief Larry Schreckengast said, Kelly E. Small was brought to the police station for questioning around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. Later Tuesday, Small was booked into the Okanogan County Jail on two counts of First Degree Rape, two counts of First Degree Burglary, one count of first degree murder and one count of first degree attempted murder.
Small allegedly raped and killed 51-year-old Sandy Bauer, on March 6, 1998, and allegedly raped and attempted to kill a woman on Feb. 25, 2006.
Small is set to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. today, in Okanogan County Superior Court.
Omak Detective Jeff Koplin, who set these unsolved cases as a priority when he started, said he took a new tack in the investigation last month, by re-interviewing all the male witnesses and asking for them to volunteer DNA samples.
Small, who had built Bauer's apartment off Okoma Drive and also lives on the south end of town, was one of those interviewed and who gave a DNA sample.
Koplin said, Small was found to have not returned home Jan. 19, a couple days after giving the DNA sample. He was reported as a missing person Jan. 26.
Omak Police received the test results on Monday, and Small's DNA allegedly matched DNA from the crime scenes.
Schreckengast said, Small was picked up by his wife in the Spokane area on Saturday. The Chief said, "He cited financial and business problems and said he had to get away from it.”
Schreckengast said when police first gathered evidence at Bauer’s apartment 12 years ago, they only collected a small amount of DNA — too small at the time to produce conclusive evidence.
But, he said, the DNA process has since been improved, and two years ago, police retested the DNA and found it matched DNA from a Feb. 6, 2006, rape and attempted murder of the 75-year-old Omak woman.
© Copyright 2006 by North Cascades Broadcasting, Inc
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