DNA on underwear worn as mask helped identify alleged child rapist

31 years after a teenage girl was forced into the woods and attacked in this Oakville, Ontario park, a jury's been shown underwear with holes cut out, worn as the assailant's mask, a chilling piece of evidence that prosecutors say helped identify a serial rapist. All these years later, Richard Neal is standing trial on charges of kidnapping and sexual assault, the culmination of a cold case investigation that zeroed in on DNA. He is not guilty, and certainly the presumption of innocence applies. As the jury was shown that underwear, a forensic scientist testified semen found on it matched genetic material from Neil. What's more, the Crown says his DNA was also a match for evidence found at the two other crime scenes in the 1990s. First, it was an 8-year-old boy attacked in Kitchener, then a 10-year-old boy in Brampton, And finally, that 15-year-old girl in Oakville. All of them lured into the woods, tied up, and assaulted. Stranger sexual assaults, whilst those are rarer in general, those types of cases are the ones most likely to really hinge on the DNA evidence. A witness told the court forensic scientists looked at roughly 310 persons of interest over the years. Can you describe the person? Like, what was he doing? And in this police video shown to the jury, the girl recounts being forced to drink the attacker's urine from a pop bottle. Neal's fingerprints were allegedly found on that evidence. Most people know CSI and they expect it like, you know, like DNA evidence particularly to just be like, OK, you press a button, it says it's a hit and that's it. But there is much more complication to it. Neal has pleaded not guilty to 17 charges. He insists police arrested the wrong man. Thomas Dagg, CBC News, Toronto.