DNA leads to charges after sexual assault victim jams finger up suspect’s nose

SEATTLE -- (KCPQ) -- Prosecutors have charged a suspect in a 2014 sexual assault on a woman walking home in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle.

The victim, who asked not to be identified, said a man tried to drag her into an open and dark parking lot.

Detectives say he grabbed her breasts and put his hand down her pants as she fought back.

“My main mission was to stay up on my feet. All I could do is go for his face, so I was just punching, scratching and, at some point, my hand got up his nose and I was twisting. I was in full defense mode,” she told Q13 News.

According to court documents, a DNA sample taken from her finger after she stuck it in the suspect's nostril during the fight identified 35-year-old Jose Luis Tum-Coronado as the suspect. His DNA was collected and entered into CODIS after he was convicted in Georgia for Armed Robbery.

Prosecutors have charged him with Indecent Liberties and requested a $500,000 bail once he is released from Central State Prison in Macon, Georgia where he is serving a two-year sentence.

The victim said she was assaulted around 1 a.m. on Jan. 18 when she was walking from lower Queen Anne to her apartment in Belltown. She noticed a man following her. “When I was walking down the sidewalk, I just felt someone behind me so I crossed the street to try to get away,” she said

Surveillance video shows the victim walking, and then a man approaching behind her. She says she tried to turn up a street to get to a busier area, but ran into a trap when the man met up with her near a crosswalk. “When I went to walk past him, he grabbed me by my shoulders,” she said. “That look in his eye, he was totally in predatory mode.”

Tum-Coronado said he couldn't remember what happened the night of the attack but that justice needs to be served and he's ready to face the consequences, saying, "I think that I was drunk and I ran into the female, and I tried to touch her and she grabbed me. I don't how how it happened, she could've scratched me or whatever. And that's how my DNA was found on her but if they have my DNA, I would declare myself guilty and face my case."

He then asked the detective to apologize to the victim on his behalf.