14 DAY TRIAL // Massachusetts State Police have caught up to now 52-year-old Gary Alan Irving, a convicted rapist who has been on their Most Wanted list for 34 years.
Irving was found guilty of three rapes committed in 1978, police spokesman David Procopio says. According to Boston.com, officers caught up to him in Gorham, Maine.
He would choose his victims after spotting them walking alone on the street. He would drive by them, park his vehicle, hide in the bushes then attack them.
He was convicted in June 1979 and allowed a short time outside prison before being sentenced, at which point he fled the state.
Irving had taken the name “Gregg Irving,” he was married and had two children, one of whom gave him a granddaughter.
His family was not aware of his criminal record and escape from justice, and his neighbors described that he was living in the same home for the past 30 years.
Police are now cross-referencing details from the case to records of rape in Maine in recent years. He stands to return to Massachusetts after an arraignment hearing on fugitive charges in Portland, Maine.
“These fugitive investigators on the Massachusetts State Police have never ceased their efforts to find him. [...] We know the tenacity of these guys. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody that they’ll find you, eventually,” Procopio said in a press conference.
Law enforcement did not disclose how they were tipped off on Irving's whereabouts, but did mention that a scar on his chest gave him away. The scar was listed in his medical records after a surgical intervention he underwent as a child.
“At the end of the day, good old-fashioned police work solved the problem,” Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey comments.