One of the two men who raped Tammy Deraps 16 years ago in Virginia was caught when he later signed the wrong name on a traffic charge, became a convicted felon and had to hand over a sample of DNA.

That sample broke her cold case. Last May he was sentenced to 115 years in prison.

“I got what so few people do in the way of vindication and validation,” said Deraps of Auburn. “There’s absolutely no point for me to stand by and keep that victory to myself.”

Under current law, the break in Deraps’ case wouldn’t have happened here. Her rapist stumbled into police hands in 1994, three years after the attack (although it would be another 11 years before police would put two-and-two together). Virginia has cataloged felons’ DNA since the late 1980s.

Maine’s only collected it since 1996.

Deraps is speaking out in support of an expanded DNA database in Maine, one that would track down every felon convicted before 1996, a bill co-sponsored by state Sen. John Nutting of Turner.

“You just think about all these crimes … that could be solved if we took that route,” she said. “I don’t plan to go away.”

Back in November 1991, Deraps, a Lewiston native, had just moved into an apartment complex in Fairfax County. She was 19 and training on an airline reservation desk. After a night out with friends after work, she arrived home at 4:15 a.m.

When she got out of her car, two masked men rushed her and pushed Deraps in the back seat. For an hour, one drove while the other attacked her.

When the car finally stopped, “They told me to keep my head down, wait 10 minutes, then do whatever, but don’t go to the police because they knew where I lived,” she said.

Deraps called police and was taken to a hospital, where a sexual assault nurse took samples for a rape kit. Ten months later, she moved back to Maine.

“Of course I tried to act like it didn’t happen. It was probably the worst year of my life,” she said.

Fourteen years later, in 2005, she learned that a detective with the Fairfax County cold case unit had pulled her case at random and found a match. The first arrest eventually led to the second.

At separate trials, one man got 115 years and the other three life sentences plus 10 years.

“I think Tammy is very, very courageous to come forward,” said Nutting.

The public hearing for LD 418 was last Monday. She and Nutting spoke for it. The Maine Civil Liberties Union spoke against. So did the Department of Public Safety.

State Police Major Bob Williams estimated the cost of tracking down as many as 16,000 older felons, getting samples and hiring more lab technicians at up to $1.5 million if police went back to 1935.

All that, when “there’s a very, very high probability that sample will never be used,” Williams said. “Of course, to the victim, it’s worth $1 million. I understand both sides of the argument.”

Maine has nearly 8,000 people convicted of felonies and most sex-related misdemeanors in its DNA database now.

State Rep. Richard Sykes of Harrison said there could be compromise, perhaps by reaching back one year at a time or getting samples from those in prison now who were convicted before 1995.

“How do you put a value on something both ways: finding someone innocent that was wrongly convicted or finding someone guilty you wouldn’t have caught otherwise?” he said. Sykes is the former Lewiston High School principal. Deraps was one of his students.

Higher-ups in government need to look at the dollars and decide where priorities lie, he said. “That, for me, is a priority.”

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