‘Rapist with bad breath’ caught in California after 16 years on the run – KIRO 7 News Seattle

The victim’s boyfriend found her tied to a bed with zip ties in her home several hours after the attack, the Washington Post reported.

Lee was identified at the time based on DNA evidence and his “horrible” breath, officials said.

Lee was convicted in 2007 but fled the state before he could be sentenced, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Lee had posted $100,000 bail, WFXT reported. After testifying at his trial in Norfolk Superior Court, Lee failed to appear for closing arguments in September 2007.

Chris Tamayo, a senior inspector with the U.S. Marshals Service in Northern California, said Lee first fled to New York and then took a bus to San Francisco, the New York Times reported.

Earlier this year, investigators received a tip that Lee was living with a woman who owned a flower shop. Danville police stopped Lee while he was out with the woman, the newspaper reported.

According to police, Lee initially gave officers a false name, “but later confessed when asked his true identity,” the Chronicle reported. His identity was confirmed by fingerprints, officials said.

The flower shop owner “never knew who he really was” despite being with Lee for 15 years, officials told the newspaper.

Lee lived with the woman in her multimillion-dollar home in Diablo, a community of about 1,200 residents just outside Danville, the Massachusetts State Police said in its press release.

After meeting the flower shop owner, they lived together in Diablo but never married, Tamayo told the newspaper.

“Everything they had was in her name, so it just went under the radar,” he said. “She was completely shocked.”

“I have some sympathy for her. Her life was just turned upside down. She had no idea who he was.”

Online booking records show Lee is being held without bail in the Contra Costa County Jail, where he will remain until extradited to Massachusetts, the Chronicle reported.

“There are violent offenders who believe they can commit crimes without being held accountable for their actions,” Chief Inspector Sean LoPiccolo, acting commander of the Marshals’ Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force, said in a statement. “Tuen Lee was on the run for more than 16 years and the tireless commitment of law enforcement to find and apprehend him hopefully brings peace of mind to the victim and her family.”