More than a decade after a female Kansas University student was kidnapped and raped, Lawrence police say they’ve found the culprit.

A 34-year-old Lawrence man is being held in Douglas County Jail on $500,000 bond after he was picked up on a warrant Tuesday. He was charged with rape and aggravated kidnapping stemming from an incident in May 1997.

Police got a break in the case in August when fingerprints on file from the 1997 investigation were matched with prints of the suspect in the FBI’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System, District Attorney Charles Branson said.

The suspect’s prints were entered into the system following an arrest in a Johnson County case, Branson said. No information about that case was immediately available Wednesday.

The fingerprint match led police to obtain a warrant and collect a DNA sample from the suspect. That DNA matched DNA collected as evidence from the rape case, Branson said.

Police were notified of the fingerprint match by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Branson said.

The KBI periodically checks fingerprints from old, unsolved cases with those in the national database to see if there is a match as new prints are added to the system, Branson said.

Branson commended police for their efforts.

“It just shows that if you leave evidence behind, sooner or later we’re going to find you,” he said.

The Journal-World generally doesn’t name sex crime suspects unless they are convicted.