SAN JOSE — DNA has linked a man living in Indiana to the vicious middle-of-the-night rape and assault of a woman at a San Jose assisted living facility in 2008, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
James Aaron Whisenand, shown on the left in a driver’s license photo from the 2000s, and, on the right, in a recent booking photo, was arrested Sept. 9, 2024 in connection with a 2008 attack and sexual assault of a women in an assisted living facility in San Jose. The case went unsolved for 16 years until his DNA sample collected after a 2023 sexual battery conviction was matched to crime scene forensic evidence, authorities say. (Santa Clara Co. District Attorney’s Office)
James Aaron Whisenand, 43, was arrested Monday in Brazil, Indiana by local authorities, state police and the U.S. Marshals Service, the DA’s office said in a news release.
On Jan. 6, 2008, a 61-year-old woman was asleep in her first-floor apartment on Saint Elizabeth Drive near Willow Glen when a man wearing a ski mask entered through a window, punched her in the face and broke her nose, choked her, then repeatedly sexually assaulted her, according to San Jose police.
Because of the blows to her face that caused her to go in and out of consciousness, and the 2 a.m. hour, no suspect was identified.
The victim died of natural causes in 2011 and the unsolved case grew cold.
But this past March, the county crime lab, which is operated by the DA’s office, learned that DNA of the assailant collected from the crime scene in 2008 matched a DNA sample submitted by Whisenand last year following his conviction for a misdemeanor sexual battery in Crescent City. He moved to Indiana after the conclusion of that case.
SJPD detectives from the original case along with the DA’s Cold Case Unit and Crescent City police, worked to confirm the DNA match, which was authenticated last month, according to the news release.
“As our forensic technology grows, the reach of justice becomes longer,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement.
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Additional investigation found that when the attack was reported, Whisenand was living with his wife two blocks away on Meridian Avenue.
On Monday, authorities compelled Whisenand to visit the police station in Brazil — a city of about 8,000 people in Clay County, Indiana — by telling him he needed to fill out forms related to his sex-offender registration. Among the officers waiting to arrest him were Sgt. Jason Pierce and Detective John Moutzouridis, the SJPD detectives who worked the case 16 years ago.
Whisenand is being held in jail custody in Clay County pending his extradition back to the Bay Area. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of the 2008 attack.
Anyone with information for investigators can contact the DA Cold Case Unit at 408-792-2466 or by email at coldcasetips@dao.sccgov.org.