Wichita ? A former truck driver held in Sedgwick County on a first-degree murder charge has been linked by DNA evidence to a series of unsolved rapes going back at least a decade, police said.

Douglas S. Belt, 41, was charged Dec. 6 in Sedgwick County with murder in connection with the death of Lucille Gallegos, 43, of Wichita. She was found dead June 25 in an apartment complex where she worked as a maid.

An autopsy indicated she had been stabbed to death before being decapitated. Her head was never found. Belt was in jail awaiting trial for an unrelated robbery when DNA tests linked him to the murder.

Authorities said they then discovered the connection between Belt and several unsolved rapes when they ran his DNA information through the Combined DNA Index System. The FBI runs the national database, known as CODIS, so federal, state and local crime labs can exchange DNA profiles electronically.

Belt was charged Dec. 20 in Madison County, Ill., with three counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault stemming from a Nov. 22, 1992, attack on a 21-year-old mother of two near Granite City, Ill.

The woman was awakened by an intruder, then sexually assaulted while her young children slept.

Police said Belt also was linked through DNA evidence to two attacks in Salina that occurred Aug. 7 and Oct. 4, 1993. He also is a suspect in a series of rapes in McPherson between 1989 and 1991.