The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office learned earlier this year that DNA left at the senior living apartment where an elderly woman was raped in 2008 matched a 43-year-old sex crime registrant now living more than 2,000 miles away.
The match led to the arrest Monday of James A. Whisenand in Brazil, Indiana on charges related to a violent home invasion rape of a 61-year-old woman in San Jose 15 years ago, according to prosecutors.
The victim died of natural causes in 2011.
Whisenand was taken into custody by the Indiana State Police, U.S. Marshals, the Clay County, Ind., sheriff, and the police department of the small southern Indiana city.
Authorities had convinced Whisenand to come down to the local police department to fill out forms related to his sex registration. He was met by San Jose Police Department Special Victims Unit Sgt. Sean Pierce and Det. John Moutzouridis, the original detectives who investigated the case in 2008.
The Clay County Prosecutor’s Office is handling Whisenand’s extradition proceedings in Indiana, where he is currently being held without bail pending his return to Santa Clara County. If convicted of all charges, Whisenand could be sentenced to life in prison.
“As our forensic technology grows, the reach of justice becomes longer,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “We don’t forget or forgive those who hurt people in our community.”
Prosecutors allege that on Jan. 6, 2008, Whisenand entered the 61-year-old woman’s first-floor apartment on Saint Elizabeth Drive, north of the Willow Glen neighborhood.
Wearing a ski mask, Whisenand punched the victim in the face, breaking her nose, and then choked her before sexually assaulting her multiple times, according to the district attorney’s office. No suspects were identified at the time.
In March, the DA’s Office Crime Lab was notified that the suspect’s DNA from the crime scene, uploaded to the national CODIS database in 2008, matched Whisenand, a sex registrant for a misdemeanor sexual battery conviction in 2023. The DA’s Cold Case Unit, with San Jose and Crescent City police, worked together to confirm Whisenand’s DNA in August.
Santa Clara County Court records show that in 2008, at the time of the rape, Whisenand lived with his then wife on Meridian Avenue, just two blocks from the victim’s senior living facility.
If anyone has any additional information about Whisenand, please call (408) 792-2466 or email [email protected].
The Cold Case Unit was established in Santa Clara County in 2011. Since that time, the DA’s Office has solved over 30 cold case murders as early as 1969. The Cold Case Unit added sexual assault investigations to its inventory in 2021 after receiving a federal grant. The DA’s Office has filed charges in five cold case sexual assaults dating back as far as 1994.
