DNA Leads to Arrest in 2007 Hotel Rape

More than four years after the early morning rape of a Gaithersburg hotel worker, DNA evidence has led police to the man they believe attacked a housekeeper at the at Montgomery Village Avenue and Route 355.

Darren Lee Marshall, 28, of the 10600 block of Joyceton Drive in Upper Marlboro, was arrested today and is being held pending a bond review hearing Tuesday afternoon in Rockville. Montgomery County Police have charged him with one count each of first-degree rape, first-degree sex offense, first-degree assault and third-degree sex offense.

The charges stem from an incident shortly after 9am on Dec. 22, 2007, when a 50-year-old female housekeeper was cleaning a room in the Holiday Inn and was assaulted and raped by an unknown male, according to police. The suspect fled the scene; the woman told co-workers, who called police.

Detectives used forensic evidence to create a DNA profile of the assailant and add it to a national database. 

The same day as the alleged rape, police caught Marshall possessing drug paraphernalia in Gaithersburg. He was cited two weeks later and pleaded guilty in August 2008. Marshall was arrested five more times in the ensuing year, on charges including armed robbery, second-degree assault, misdemeanor theft and for being a fugitive from justice in Washington, D.C. Online court records give Marshall an address on Frederick Ave. in Gaithersburg for most of those cases.

Prosecutors dropped the charges in three of the five arrests.

Then last month, Marshall was cited in Montgomery County Circuit Court for violating parole in a 2009 assault conviction. He had a parole violation hearing on Feb. 15. Montgomery County Police filed their warrant in the rape case on Feb. 21.