Jogger dragged to secluded area and raped in 1994, NM officials say. Man now convicted

A man is going to prison after he was convicted in the 1994 rape of a jogger in New Mexico, officials said.

On Nov. 26, 1994, a woman was jogging in Bosque when a man, later identified as Gilbert Contreras, grabbed her and dragged her to a secluded area, according to a Facebook post by Bernalillo County District Attorney Sam Bregman.

Contreras kicked and beat the woman, then raped her, officials said.

“Naked, bound, and still gagged, she [the victim] waited. She played dead. She tried to seem unconscious until she felt like she could start to work her way back toward the trail she’d been running on that day,” prosecutor Jack Bennett Jacks said during the trial, according to KRQE.

The woman died in 2013, and the rape kit went untested until 2020, KRQE reported.

Eventually, DNA linked Contreras to the crime, officials said.

Contreras was convicted of criminal sexual penetration resulting in great mental anguish, great bodily harm and kidnapping, the Facebook post said.

He is facing up to 72 years in prison, officials said.

“It doesn’t matter how old the case is - we will be relentless in our pursuit of Justice,” Bregman said in the release.

Bosque is about a 40-mile drive south from Albuquerque.

This story was originally published November 26, 2024 at 2:17 PM with the headline "Jogger dragged to secluded area and raped in 1994, NM officials say. Man now convicted."