SIOUX FALLS, S.D (KELO AM) - Sioux Falls police made arrests in separate, random rape cases.
Officer Sam Clemens says 23-year-old Mario Alberto Banegas-Jaen is accused of raping a 43-year-old woman two weeks ago after he walked into her unlocked North Cliff Avenue apartment.
Clemens says the suspect left a pack of cigarettes in the victim's apartment. A short time later surveillance cameras show Banegas-Jaen going into a convenience store next to the apartment and buying the same brand of cigarettes. He used a credit card in the purchase and that's how police got his name.
Clemens says 31-year-old Jonathon Jerome Packard is accused of raping a 19-year-old woman in her South Spring Avenuie backyard last October.
The woman was picking up after a bon-fire party when she blacked out. Police believe her attacker hit her inthe head. When she woke up she was being raped by an unknown attacker. She reported the rape and the hospital used a rape kit to collect evidence.
Clemens says the crime lab in Pierre came up with Packard as a suspect and police collected another DNA sample in December. The samples matched and Packard was arrested.
Both suspects are charged with second degree rape.