Sedona Suspect Faces Trial for 2006 Cold-Case Sexual Assault

DNA, fingerprint evidence link suspect to two-decade-old kidnapping and rape case

Sedona police have charged a suspect in a more than 20-year-old "cold case" sexual assault, a breakthrough that former Sedona Police Department Detective Austin Guastalli credits to a combination of traditional detective work and modern DNA testing.

Laurencio Rivera Vasquez, 45, is scheduled for a pretrial hearing Monday, October 12, in Yavapai County Superior Court in Camp Verde. He faces four felony counts, including kidnapping and sexual assault, in connection with the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl in Sedona on July 19, 2006, according to Yavapai County Superior Court records.

The 2006 Incident

According to police records, the victim told investigators she had packed her clothes and was running away to a friend's home because of problems with her parents. She was wearing a dolphin ring. At 2 a.m., the victim's friend sent a young man she knew only as "Daniel" to give her a ride.

Police say Rivera Vasquez instead drove the victim to his own home, where the assault allegedly took place. After the two got out of the vehicle, the report states he punched the victim in the mouth "to stop her from screaming" and "forcefully grabbed her upper right arm to stop her from leaving." He allegedly then forced her into his bedroom, where "he placed a rag into her mouth and secured it with a brown belt around her head," and removed her dolphin ring.

The report says Rivera Vasquez later used the belt to restrain the victim by tying it around both their arms so they could lie side by side. Police records state that "Daniel" threatened the victim that she was never going to leave "and she was going to stay with him" or he would harm her family. Three times he went to sleep, and each time the victim attempted to flee but was forcibly detained.

Police Search and Discovery

Waking at 5 a.m., the victim's parents discovered she was not in her bed. They went to the friend, who said the girl might be at "Daniel's" home. The friend led the victim's father to the residence, where the older man said he did not know "but he could check."

The father opened a second bedroom and saw a man under a white sheet, which was up to his neck, with someone else underneath. The father told the report, "time to go," and "the person removed the sheet and it was" the victim. "She never saw him ['Daniel'] before that night and never again after," the report reads.

In 2006, the victim told police she was able to use the suspect's cell phone to call her father for help. Sedona Police were dispatched at 6:38 a.m. for a 911 call for "an unknown problem." Officers found the girl's mother upset and yelling at her daughter, who was crying and told police nothing had happened.

The girl agreed to stay with a cousin on the condition that she receive a medical exam. She told her mother, en route, about the alleged assault, as well as the doctor at Verde Valley Medical Center. SPD was notified of the assault by 10:30 a.m.

A search warrant was signed by the then-Sedona Magistrate Judge at 3:55 p.m., and the residence was searched at 4:15 p.m., but the suspect was not there. Three men were in the home, including the suspect's brother. Among the items police found were two white mattress pads, bedding on the floor, white ankle socks, shoes, trash, uneaten food, and a photo of the victim.

"I also located a small gold Dolphin ring and a multi-colored beaded bracelet in the seam of the carpet at the south wall," an officer noted in the report.

"As of July 25, 2006, Daniel can not be located and this case is going to be forwarded to Yavapai County Attorney's Office for review for charging," the report reads. SPD went to the Verde Valley Justice of the Peace on Sept. 14, 2006, to sign a felony complaint and warrant for Daniel V. Rivera.

The Name Game

The delay in identifying Rivera Vasquez as the suspect can be attributed to the suspect using his brother's name, "Daniel," and the names of his four brothers to avoid providing his actual name to law enforcement, according to the SPD report.

The case sat largely dormant until the victim's mother walked into the SPD lobby on the afternoon of April 23, 2015.

She told police "that the suspect we have listed [Daniel Rivera] is not correct and the real name of the suspect is Laurencio Rivera Velasquez or Vasquez," the report reads. She did not know how to spell his name nor his birthday. She also said he "commonly uses the names of his brothers to avoid giving his real name."

While the mother was unable to find a photo of him, she had recently learned of identifying features: he was missing half of his pinky or ring finger on one hand, and he has a large scar and an indent on the side of his head. She said both injuries happened before the 2006 alleged assault.

She said Rivera Vasquez was picking oranges in California, though she did not know where, and that he sometimes showed up in Sedona unannounced to see family and friends. She also said he stays in San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato, when visiting Mexico. SPD also learned the suspect had a teenage daughter.

The Break in 2025

"On June 11, 2025, I was at a Police Training in Prescott where I met with Ed Bills, a Yavapai County Attorney investigator," Guastalli wrote in the police report. "Bills told me he needed to find the true identity of the suspect in this case, as the warrant previously issued in the name of Daniel Rivera was now invalid."

The break in the case came when Guastalli searched for the suspect's daughter instead. Police records showed she had been an unrestrained passenger in a red two-door Plymouth during an aggravated DUI arrest in Sedona on April 19, 2002, when she was 2 and a half years old. The man arrested was "Laurencio V. Rivera," according to the report. Guastalli also found a booking photo of the suspect from a more recent DUI arrest in Marin County, California.

Guastalli re-interviewed the victim and her mother on June 25, 2025, and re-interviewed the father on July 2, 2025; however, no one could pick the suspect out of a photo lineup. The father told Guastalli he remembered his daughter calling him to come get her at the suspect's home. "He told me he went inside the trailer and went to the suspect's bedroom. He then said he just froze when he saw the victim on the floor of the bedroom crying. He said he really didn't remember what the suspect looked like."

On Aug. 25, 2025, a DNA profile developed from the victim's underwear was entered as an unidentified profile into the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS.

On Oct. 27, 2025, the Arizona state crime lab identified a fingerprint on a beer can recovered from the bedroom trash in 2006 as Rivera Vasquez's. Guastalli also noted that when reviewing the photos of the 2006 search of the suspect's home, "I observed a bright red car directly outside the window parked, consistent with the red Plymouth of Rivera Vasquez's 2002 DUI arrest in Sedona."

Guastalli testified in a grand jury hearing on Nov. 19, 2025, that resulted in Rivera Vasquez's indictment and an extraditable warrant.

Arrest in California and DNA Confirmation

Rivera Vasquez was arrested by Novato, California, police on Jan. 3, 2026, in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. During the interview, Novato police gave the suspect a water bottle. After he drank from it and discarded it, the bottle was placed into evidence and sent to SPD, which received it on Jan. 6, 2026, and sent it to the Arizona Department of Public Safety Lab in Flagstaff for DNA testing on Jan. 9.

Rivera Vasquez was arraigned in Yavapai County Superior Court on Feb. 18. On March 16, the DPS crime lab wrote that the DNA on the victim's clothing was consistent with a mix of the victim's DNA and DNA from the water bottle, and that "further interpretation may be possible upon receipt of a known standard from Laurencio Rivera Vasquez."

On April 30, the DPS crime lab "confirmed a CODIS match" with Rivera Vasquez from the DNA collected from the victim's clothes.

On June 26, Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Michael Bluff ordered a DNA sample and a cheek swab from Rivera Vasquez. The results came back on July 28, and DPS found the DNA on the victim's clothing was about "45 octillion times more likely to have come from the victim and Rivera Vasquez than from the victim and a random, unrelated person," according to the report.

What's Next

"At that hearing the parties will discuss the status of the case in terms of whether the case needs to be set for trial or whether the case can be resolved through plea negotiations," Deputy County Attorney Ethan A. Wolfinger wrote.

"I want to thank the Yavapai County Attorney's Office, the Arizona State Crime Lab and the U.S. Marshals Pacific Task Force for all their hard work and assistance in helping this case move forward towards a place of justice," Guastalli wrote to the Red Rock News.

This story will be updated with any developments from the pretrial hearing.