A Southern California man was convicted of kidnapping and raping a 6-year-old girl in a case that went cold before advancements in DNA testing led to his arrest.
Francisco Javier Lopez, 51, of Montebello, was convicted of sexually assaulting the girl after spotting her in a Santa Ana neighborhood in 2012.
On July 15, 2012, the girl was playing with a 4-year-old boy outside her home in the 1400 block of South Townsend Street.
Lopez parked his car, walked up to the girl and said, “I have something for you to give to your mother,” before grabbing her and placing her in his car, The Orange County Register reported.
He drove her to a nearby parking lot where he sexually assaulted her. About 90 minutes to two hours later, she was “dumped out of the vehicle” and abandoned near her neighborhood, detectives said.
He fled the scene and investigators were left with few clues beyond a general description of the suspect and his vehicle. DNA was recovered from the crime scene and submitted to a state database, but there were no matches. The DNA was submitted annually in hopes of finding a match, but the case went cold.
In 2014, a woman related to Lopez was convicted of an unrelated crime in Orange County and her DNA samples were sent to a local DNA database and the statewide system, the O.C. Register reported. The DNA sat in the database for several years.
For “particularly heinous” crimes, state crime lab officials can search for familial matches where DNA profile from a crime scene is tracked to family members of suspects.
But it wasn’t until 2018 that state DNA scientists could compare familial DNA between male and female family members after the number of genetic markers was increased.
Following this breakthrough, detectives identified Lopez as a suspect and began surveilling him. Investigators collected “discarded evidence” that provided Lopez’s DNA, which was confirmed as a match to the DNA that was collected from the child’s rape.
In 2019, Santa Ana Police arrested Lopez, who was charged with multiple counts of kidnapping and sexual assault.
On Sept. 16, 2025, Lopez was convicted of 11 counts, including:
- 1 felony count of kidnapping to commit a sex offense
- 1 felony count of oral copulation of a child under the age of 11
- 3 felony counts of sexual penetration of a child under the age of 11
- 1 felony count of sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 11
- 5 felony counts of a forcible lewd and lascivious act with a child under the age of 14
Police said Lopez lived in the same apartment complex as the young girl, but did not appear to have any contact with the child or her family before the kidnapping and rape.
The Lopez case marks the first time in Orange County history where a woman’s DNA was used to identify a male-related suspect and only the second time in California history.
“If the Orange County District Attorney’s Office did not have the local DNA database, or we did not have the ability when we have a conviction to submit this sample to the state database, [the case of] a 6-year-old who was brutally kidnapped and sexually molested on the streets of Orange County would arguably continue to remain unsolved today,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer following Lopez’s arrest.
A sentencing hearing for Lopez is scheduled for Oct. 9.