Woman leaps from balcony to escape assault in 2000, VA police say. Now, man arrested

Advances in DNA technology led to a man’s arrest in connection with sex crimes that went unsolved for decades, Virginia investigators said.

Evidence from three scenes identified the suspect as 58-year-old Eugene Pottmyer, the Fairfax County Police Department said June 13.

His attorney information is not available in court records.

In September 1998, a 48-year-old woman was on a run when a man attacked her, sexually assaulted her and fled, police said.

Then nearly two years later, a man broke into a home where a 66-year-old woman was sleeping, and he began to assault her, police said. She struggled with the man and escaped by leaping from a second-story balcony, according to investigators.

In the third incident, from December 2004, a woman reported that a man exposed himself outside the glass door to her home, then he ran away when she yelled, police said.

Detectives collected DNA from the three scenes and sent it for lab analysis, but the cases went cold.

Recently, investigators submitted that DNA to Othram Inc. to use forensic genealogy testing to identify a potential suspect.

DNA connected the three incidents and traced them back to Pottmyer, officials said. He was charged with forcible sodomy and abduction with the intent to defile.

Fairfax County is part of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

This story was originally published June 14, 2024 at 11:13 AM with the headline "Woman leaps from balcony to escape assault in 2000, VA police say. Now, man arrested."