DNA led to arrest in sex assault case

Stephen Curran

Friday, March 25, 2005 | 9:53 a.m.

DNA evidence provided by an out-of-state database helped lead Metro Police to a man wanted in a September 2004 robbery and sexual assault.

Joseph Alexander Henderson, 34, was arrested Monday after a California Highway Patrol trooper stopped him the previous week traveling south just over the state line, Detective Michael Jeffries of Metro's sexual assault division said.

Henderson was wanted in connection with a robbery of a physician's house in northwest Las Vegas on Sept. 3. According to a Metro arrest report, he and two other men, each wearing ski masks and armed with pistols with laser sights, entered the house in the 7800 block of Lonesome Harbor Avenue and asked where the money and safe were.

The couple was later bound and Henderson allegedly raped the homeowner's girlfriend twice. The homeowner, Eric Bernzweig, was pistol whipped and suffered gashes to his scalp, the report stated.

The two other men wanted for the crime had not been identified or arrested Thursday, Jeffries said.

Henderson was arrested by the CHP on March 12 for outstanding warrants in Clark County and again by Metro nine days later. He was charged with burglary with a weapon, kidnapping with a weapon, two counts of sexual assault with a weapon and robbery with a deadly weapon. He remained at the Clark County Detention Center on Thursday, police said.

Metro, using DNA Henderson provided for a California Department of Justice database, were able to match his DNA to evidence found at the scene of the crime, Jeffries said. 10