Voyeurism conviction leads to DNA match in old Spokane Valley sexual assault cases
A man who recently pleaded guilty to voyeurism is facing new charges after his DNA was matched to samples collected in sexual assault cases from 2008 and 2009.
Garry L. Davis, 30, was arrested in September 2016 after a 17-year-old girl reported that he slipped a cell phone under the stall door in the women’s bathroom in Greenacres Park and took her picture.
Deputies found him still in the bathroom holding a cell phone and a container of lubricant, according to court documents.
As part of his guilty plea, Davis was required to register as a sex offender and submit a DNA sample. When the sample was entered into the database at the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab, it matched DNA evidence on file in two previous cases, said Spokane County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Deputy Mark Gregory.
On December 10, 2008, a woman awoke in her apartment on Houk Road to find someone fondling her. She screamed and her boyfriend gave chase. Blood was found on a tarp covering a barbecue the next morning. The DNA from the blood did not match any currently on file.
On September 27, 2009, a woman walking near Pines Road and Fourth Avenue was attacked by a man who tried to remove her clothes and rape her. The woman fought back violently and was able to scratch the man several times, Gregory said.
Her attacker’s blood was tested but again no match was found.
Since 2005, Davis has been arrested twice for indecent exposure and was considered a suspect in other related incidents, Gregory said.
Court documents list the previous incidents, including the accusation that he fondled two 13-year-old girls in 2005 when he was 19. In 2009, he was found hiding in a women’s bathroom at the Spokane Valley High School. He was not a student there.
A woman reported seeing him masturbate in public in 2010, and in 2010 he was contacted by a security guard at Gonzaga University who spotted Davis apparently following a female student.
Davis was arrested in 2012, after he was found masturbating in front of two 14-year-old girls in a public park. In 2014, a woman in a park restroom reported finding Davis standing outside her stall when she exited and said he touched her and began masturbating, court documents state.
Davis was arrested Tuesday on charges of attempted second-degree rape, unlawful imprisonment and two counts of indecent liberties in connection to the 2008 and 2009 incidents.
“He at first denied and then admitted both of these incidents,” Gregory said. Davis also confessed to breaking into other homes to commit similar crimes over the years, he said.
Davis is being held in the Spokane County Jail on $500,000 bond.