<p>The suspected serial rapist of at least 25 women in three states has been arrested in the 1973 rape of a Manhattan woman because of DNA tests on her 32-year-old underwear linking him to the attack.</p><p>Clarence Williams, 58, who had been living in Georgia, was connected this month to the Manhattan attack and to attacks in Maryland and New Jersey after the federal DNA database matched a DNA sample from him to DNA left in those attacks, District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said.</p><p>"This case shows the importance of the federal database and the importance of keeping rape kits and files, even after 32 years," Morgenthau said. "It will send a chill through defendants to know that you can still test for DNA after 32 years."</p><p>Williams, who Morgenthau's office also identified with the aliases Anderson Morrell and Anderson Worrell, was at large because he had jumped bail while awaiting retrial on rape charges in Manhattan and Queens, Morgenthau said. His 1974 Manhattan trial ended with a hung jury, and the 1975 conviction in Queens was reversed in 1976, Morgenthau said.</p><p>Released on bail pending retrial of the cases, Williams fled in 1978, and warrants were issued for his arrest, prosecutors said.</p><p>He was arrested last year in DeKalb County, Ga., after he tried to buy a shotgun, Morgenthau said. When authorities did a background check based on information he gave them, the New York bail-jump warrants surfaced and he was arrested.</p><p>Williams, who had been living in Clarkston, Ga., has been extradited to New York. Morgenthau said that when the 1973 Manhattan victim was told about the arrest, "I think she was upset but extremely grateful."</p><p>Because Williams had been indicted in Manhattan and Queens before he fled, Morgenthau said, the statute of limitations did not apply. Both of those cases are still pending.</p><p>In 1973, there was no testing of DNA _ the so-called genetic fingerprint that is unique to each person. But when prosecutors from the Cold Case DNA Project submitted the underwear to the chief medical examiner for testing, a profile from semen was developed and sent to the federal Combined DNA Indexing System database, or CODIS.</p><p>CODIS compared the semen evidence to all available rape kit samples.</p><p>Williams was charged in Manhattan with rape, sexual abuse, robbery, criminal possession of a weapon and several lesser crimes. He could face 16 2/3 to 50 years in prison if convicted.</p><p>Williams' lawyer, Michael Rubin, said his client "has maintained his innocence throughout" and the latest allegations "are new to us." He said Williams, who is being held at Rikers Island without bail, is due in court in Manhattan on May 17.</p><p>Morgenthau said the Maryland assailant, dubbed the Silver Springs Rapist, attacked 21 women from 1987 through 1991. He said police in Montgomery County, Md., linked nine of the cases by DNA but believed the same man did all of them.</p><p>The Maryland cases were linked by the federal database to two sexual assault cases in 1993 in Morris County, N.J. Morgenthau said those cases involved a pattern similar to those in New York and Maryland and were unsolved for 12 years.</p>
