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The San Ramon Valley is making national headlines this week after the fugitive in a nearly 20-year-old rape case in Massachusetts who had eluded authorities for more than 16 years was found to have been living in Diablo for a majority of that time with a woman who did not know his identity.
Tuan Lee, 55, was in custody at the West County Detention Facility as of Wednesday afternoon after being arrested Tuesday by Danville police on an out-of-state warrant for charges in a 2005 kidnapping and sexual assault in Massachusetts that he had been fleeing from since 2007.
Lee has been dubbed the “bad breath rapist” after being identified based on both DNA evidence and the smell of his breath as the man who had broken into the home of a woman that worked at his family’s restaurant outside Boston in 2005 and raped her.
Lee was found guilty on all charges in 2007, but fled the state in the midst of the trial after taking the stand, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
The search had been on for Lee ever since, with investigators receiving a break in the case earlier this year that pointed them towards Diablo, where Lee was believed to have been living with a woman for more than 15 years while concealing his identity from her and the rest of the community.
“Further investigation showed that the multi-million dollar residence was owned by a female flower shop owner,” Massachusetts State Police officials said in an announcement Tuesday. “Open-source intelligence provided investigators with images of an individual on social media that they believed was Lee.”
Massachusetts investigators traveled to the San Ramon Valley to pursue the leads alongside the U.S. Marshals Service’s Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force (PSWRFTF) after verifying Lee’s identity and location with help from the Danville Police Department.
During an ensuing surveillance operation, Lee and the woman he was living with were seen leaving their Diablo home and getting into a vehicle, with DPD officers proceeding to conduct a traffic stop Tuesday. Lee confessed his identity after being pressed by officers and initially providing a fake name, with his identity being confirmed by fingerprints. He was taken into custody by DPD and booked into the West County Detention Facility on no bail, where he is set to remain until he’s transferred to Massachusetts.
“There are violent offenders out there who believe they can commit crimes and not be held accountable for their actions,” said Sean LoPiccolo, acting PSWRFTF commander, in an announcement from the U.S. Marshals Service Tuesday. “Tuen Lee was on the run for more than 16 years and the unwavering dedication by law enforcement to locate and arrest him hopefully brings peace of mind to the victim and her family.”
