Rape case awaits DNA evidence test

The outcome of a case against a 31-year-old Oak Harbor man accused of raping a 13-year-old girl may depend on DNA evidence.

Edwin R. Bender II was charged in Island County Superior Court June 27 with rape of a child in the second degree. He's accused of sexually abusing a girl last month.

Bender is being held in the Island County jail on $50,000 bond.

Island County Sheriff's Detective Sue Quandt wrote in a probable cause affidavit that a security officer at the Navy hospital reported that the girl came to the emergency room with her mother and said she had been raped by Bender.

The girl said she was watching television when Bender came into the bedroom, pulled her clothes off against her will and then sexually assaulted her, court records show. The teenager said she screamed at Bender to stop, but he persisted.

Bender told the girl's mother that he didn't assault the girl, the report says.

A doctor at the Navy hospital examined the victim and completed a sexual assault evidence collection kit.

To compare any DNA recovered from the victim, Quandt got a search warrant to obtain oral swabs from Bender to collect his DNA.

The DNA samples were sent to the Washington State Patrol crime lab for analysis.

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