IAPE Evidence Blog

The Wash­ing­ton Post, washingtonpost.com
BYLINE: Dan Morse, Wash­ing­ton Post Staff Writer
Link to Article

Gaithers­burg, MD

Edwards (Cour­tesy Of Gaithers­burg Police Department)

A Gaithers­burg man accused of squirt­ing semen from a bot­tle onto a gro­cery shop­per last month was arrested this week in a sim­i­lar case and may have done the same thing at least twice before, offi­cials said Tuesday.

On July 15 at a Giant Food store in Gaithers­burg, police said, a man dis­charged fluid from a small bot­tle sim­i­lar to those used to hold hand san­i­tizer and then snapped a photo of the act with his cell­phone. The vic­tim saved her unwashed shirt and skirt, pro­vid­ing inves­ti­ga­tors with a pos­si­ble DNA sample.

Michael Wayne Edwards Jr., 28, has been charged in that inci­dent and in another at a Michaels craft store, also in Gaithers­burg. Police said that after ques­tion­ing Edwards, they are look­ing for at least two more victims.

Gaithers­burg police ask any­one who may have noticed an unusual sub­stance on their clothes but wrote it off as benign to call them at 301 – 258-6400. “No one would ever think that some­one would do this,” said Offi­cer Dan Lane.

Edwards, who is free on bond, is sched­uled for two tri­als on assault charges in Sep­tem­ber. He could not be reached for com­ment Tuesday.

Police say offi­cers were called to the Giant on Muddy Branch Road on July 15 after a woman said she felt some­thing in her hair as she was walk­ing out of the store. She said that she asked the man behind her if he’d felt a drip from above but that the man “acted like he didn’t know what she was talk­ing about,” accord­ing to an arrest affi­davit filed in court.

In the park­ing lot, the woman asked a friend to look at her clothes. Her friend said it looked like semen. The vic­tim told police that she then spot­ted the man in the park­ing lot and walked toward him, but he sped away.

Detec­tive Patrick Word exam­ined sur­veil­lance video and saw the sus­pect pur­chase gro­ceries using his store bonus card. In the door­way, the man can be seen squirt­ing fluid from a bot­tle and tak­ing a pic­ture, police said.

Police iden­ti­fied Edwards through his bonus card and the sur­veil­lance video. Foren­sic tests con­firmed the sub­stance as semen. DNA tests are pending.

Mont­gomery County Detec­tive Scott Brooks had been inves­ti­gat­ing the Michaels case since Novem­ber. A shop­per said a man fol­lowed her into the store. After he walked by, she felt liq­uid on the back of her sweater. She looked and thought it was semen. Lab results con­firmed it.

Brooks matched that assailant’s descrip­tion to Edwards, who was charged in the case. 

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