DNA may link alleged "East Coast Rapist" to 18th attack

(CBS/AP) - Aaron Thomas, the man authorities call the "East Coast Rapist" and who is suspected in at least 17 attacks from Virginia to Connecticut, may have also committed a 1999 sexual assault in Maryland, authorities said Monday.

DNA testing is being conducted to try to establish a conclusive match.

Authorities say Thomas has already been linked through DNA testing, to 17 rapes and attacks on women, and that additional DNA testing is being done by a Maryland state police lab in a 1999 rape in Greenbelt. 

Greenbelt is located in Prince George's County, where several other attacks linked to Thomas have occurred.

So far Thomas is charged with three rapes in Virginia and has pleaded not guilty to another in Connecticut.

The unemployed truck driver was arrested in March in his hometown of New Haven.

Thomas has been suspected of sexual assaults dating to 1997, but he has told investigators that he began committing attacks six years before that, according to law enforcement officials familiar with the case.

Authorities had mounted a large-scale public outreach campaign, putting up electronic billboards in the states where the attacks occurred and in neighboring states. DNA from a cigarette that police saw Thomas discard after leaving a New Haven court was used to confirm that Thomas was the man wanted in the attacks, a
prosecutor has said.