A 54-year-old man has been charged with kidnapping and rape with a weapon in the assault of a 15-year-old girl he picked up at a convenience store in September 1995, authorities say.
Jimmy Gerald Ruybal, 54, was charged today and is being held in the Jefferson County Detention Center in lieu of $1 million bail, according to a news release by Pam Russell, spokeswoman for District Attorney Scott Storey.
Ruybal allegedly picked up the teen at a Conoco station at 6000 First Ave. in Lakewood by offering to give her a ride to a friend’s house, Russell said.
He then allegedly sexually assaulted her at knifepoint. After the assault, the victim jumped from his moving car and ran for help, she said.
The Lakewood Police Department’s cold-case unit recently developed enough evidence to charge Ruybal.
“Refinements in technology, including analysis of fingerprints or DNA evidence, provide us with tools we didn’t have a decade ago,” Storey said.
“We can now revisit these cases, often with evidence we need to arrest and prosecute in investigations which had previously reached a dead end,” he said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
