Kansas City, Mo. ? Jackson County prosecutors this week dropped rape charges against an Independence man whose DNA exonerated him despite two sexual assault victims picking him out as their attacker.

Deangilo Minor, then 19, was arrested June 6 as he was riding his bike to his grandmother’s birthday party in Kansas City. When he approached a group of police officers, the 40-year-old woman they were interviewing pointed and said, “That’s him!”

He was arrested and charged with attempted rape and attempted sodomy. The victim escaped but not before she was hit in the head with a brick.

The nature of the alleged crime was similar to the May 24 rape of another woman in the neighborhood, who was also hit in the head with a brick. When police showed the woman Minor’s picture in a photo lineup, she picked him out.

Minor was charged with rape, sodomy, robbery and assault in that case and Minor’s DNA was sent off to match against semen found at the scene.

Minor’s mother, Claresa Minor, was initially angry about the second round of charges but later “looked on it as a kind of blessing” because it at least involved DNA, which could help clear her son.

For months, she and her son anxiously awaited the results of the DNA tests, convinced of his innocence.

“All of the sudden he wakes up on his grandmother’s birthday and rapes?” Minor, 38, asked. “I thought it was crazy.”