Phoenix Police detectives have arrested a man linked to at least four kidnappings and sexual assaults in the Phoenix area dating back more than 26 years.
According to the Phoenix Police Department, in 1994, Abraham Ramirez was arrested in California, but never convicted, for a kidnapping and sexual assault. The victim agreed to a sexual assault kit and DNA evidence was collected. At the time, DNA was still a fairly new forensic tool and there was no mandate to process the DNA or enter it into a national database.
Between 1998 and 2013, four kidnappings and sexual assaults went unsolved in the Phoenix area, despite the exhaustive work of detectives and forensic experts. In each case, the victims consented to a forensic examination where DNA evidence was collected, and an unidentified male DNA profile was developed. These DNA profiles were entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database. As a result, investigators learned the DNA from all four sexual assaults matched the same suspect. However, the person belonging to that profile was not able to be identified, as they were not currently in the system.
Fast forward to July 2025, when the Phoenix Crime Lab was notified that a match was found related to a case out of California from 1994 identifying the suspect as Abraham Ramirez. The profile from the sexual assault kit from the 1994 cold case was submitted to national database in mid-July, by Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, as part of a federal grant under the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.
Within a few days, Phoenix detectives were able to track down and arrest Ramirez, who was taken into custody and booked on multiple counts of kidnapping and sexual assault.
Throughout the years, Phoenix detectives and the forensic scientists at the Phoenix Police Crime Lab never stopped working these cases. A composite sketch of a suspect was developed and widely circulated, and forensic scientists used new technology like genetic genealogy and familial DNA testing trying to identify a suspect.
Phoenix Police investigators were working on these cases as recently as last month in a continued attempt to bring justice to the victims.
Off to the woodchopper for him!
Bring back Old West justice.
BUSTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Congratulations Gentlemen!!! GREAT EFFORT AND WORK!! To bad it took so long.. going forward it won’t as these techniques are refined.
‘Too’ bad
😉
Some people look like criminals, he is one creepy looking man.
It’s nice to know that the authorities kept after these claims for all of those years, I hope it brings some closure to some of the victims, even though so many years have gone by. Things like this offer hope to newer generations as technology advances.