A man who is accused of raping two women at gunpoint in a Framingham store in 1989 will be extradited to Massachusetts following his arrest in Los Angeles over the summer, authorities said.
Stephen Paul Gale, 71, was arrested on Aug. 9 after an hour-and-a-half-long police chase down Interstate 405 northbound in Los Angeles, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
“After more than three decades it now appears that Gale’s attempts to evade justice have come to an end,“ Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said in a statement. “For the two women who were victimized by him in 1989, the wait for answers has been long and painful. While Mr. Gale has made significant efforts to conceal his identity, the efforts by law enforcement were even more relentless.”
Gale is charged with four counts of aggravated rape, two counts of kidnapping and one count of armed robbery.
Gale walked into the Hit of Miss Store on Route 9 in Framingham in December 1989, the district attorney said. He showed a .357 Magnum handgun and forced two female workers to the back of the store.
He made one woman empty money from a locked safe, the store’s register and her pocketbook into a bag, the district attorney said. He made another woman lock the store’s doors and put a sign on the front door saying the store would open late.
Gale then forced both women to strip and placed them in separate rooms, the district attorney said. He then sexually assaulted both of them at gunpoint, officials said. When Gale went back to the front of the store, the women left out the back door to a nearby home.
Authorities collected evidence that helped get Gale’s DNA.
In 2001, a DNA profile was developed for Gale and uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System, an FBI database used to compare DNA profiles. But, there weren’t any profiles that identified Gale.
In 2022, law enforcement worked with Parabon Nanolabs, a DNA technology company, to develop new leads to identify Gale, the district attorney said.
After a police investigation, DNA samples were taken from Gale’s family. These DNA samples were compared to Gale’s DNA. The evidence and results comparing the two profiles led police to label Gale as the suspect.
