Suspect in 2003 St. Paul rape is charged after testing of DNA evidence

Testing of DNA evidence nearly 20 years after it was collected has led to a man's arrest on allegations that he raped a woman in a vehicle.

Shawn P. Skie, 48, was charged in Ramsey County District Court last week with first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the assault of a longtime friend soon after they met at a bar on Dec. 28, 2003.

Skie, of St. Paul, was arrested Saturday, appeared in court Monday and was released on $80,000 bond. He's due back in court Nov. 2. A message was left Tuesday with his attorney seeking a response to the allegations.

Since 2012, the Ramsey County Attorney's Office and its law enforcement partners have been chipping away at their backlog of sexual assault kits holding evidence in unsolved cases. As of this week, according to the County Attorney's Office, its backlog sits at fewer than 30 cases.

"This offender's actions took a permanent toll on the victim's spirit and future," read a statement from Ramsey County Attorney John Choi. "The determination and partnership of the Saint Paul police investigators, the [state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension] lab and the dedicated sexual assault prosecutor in our office made this outcome possible."

Skie and the woman met at a bar near Stryker and Dodd avenues for drinks so he could say goodbye before moving to California, the criminal complaint read. She recalled later being raped in his vehicle in a nearby parking lot, the charging document continued.

Police first met with the victim at a hospital, where a nurse collected DNA from her and sent it to the BCA for analysis. Police began investigating Skie as the suspect, but they could not find him. About 14 months later, police classified the case as pending.

The break in the case came in August 2023, when the DNA was eventually tested and a match pointing to Skie came back during a periodic profile search of the Minnesota DNA database.

After being notified of the match, the woman told law enforcement that she wanted to proceed with charging Skie for a crime that "has ruined her life," the criminal complaint read.

The woman said that despite the passage of time, she "still vividly remembers" the assault, the complaint read.

A friend who picked up the woman from the West Side parking lot where the alleged rape occurred and drove her to the hospital told law enforcement recently that [the woman] used to be "full of life," but the attack took some of that away, the complaint noted.

The complaint noted that Skie also is suspected in "two other cases that are highly similar" to this one.

Court records show that Skie's criminal history reaches as far back as the mid-1990s and continued well after the alleged rape. He has numerous convictions for disorderly conduct, four for drunken driving, two for assault and one each for burglary, theft and passing a check fraud.