Police say evidence links accused rapist to crime scene

<p>As Santa Rosa police burst through his front door, a man now on trial for a violent kidnapping, rape and stabbing in Bennett Valley plunged a four-foot spear into his abdomen, officers testified Thursday in Sonoma County Court.</p><p>A handwritten note officers found in the front pocket of his track suit stated: "I'm sorry for what I have done."</p><p>Aristotle Quadra, 31, faces nine felony charges in connection with the Feb. 7 assault on a 29-year-old Santa Rosa woman, who was accosted at the Yulupa Avenue Safeway as she loaded her toddler into her SUV. She testified that Quadra forced her to drive to a secluded parking lot, where he handcuffed and raped her, and stabbed her more than a dozen times with an ice pick.</p><p>Quadra was arrested three days later. He faces life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges, including attempted murder, rape and kidnapping with intent to rape.</p><p>On Thursday, the third day of testimony, nearly a dozen prosecution witnesses offered strings of evidence the prosecutor is hoping to weave together to convince jurors of Quadra's guilt.</p><p>Santa Rosa police officers described several items seized from Quadra's Mayette Avenue apartment three days after the attack that appear to connect him to the locations involved in the crime.</p><p>Just days before, he had been fired from a convalescent home near the alleged rape scene and was seeking a new job at another nearby convalescent center -- the one where the woman sought help after she was stabbed.</p><p>Police testified they found Quadra's employee name badge from Beverly Living in his apartment and a partially completed job application for Park View Garden convalescent home. Quadra had been let go from Beverly Living within a week prior to the assault, another witness testified.</p><p>On Tuesday, the woman identified Quadra as her assailant.</p><p>She said she was kidnapped from the Safeway lot and was forced to drive to a parking lot off Montgomery Drive. After Quadra raped her and stabbed her more than a dozen times, she said she ran into the lobby of Park View Garden for help.</p><p>During two searches of the one-bedroom apartment Quadra shared with his wife -- which is within two miles of the Safeway, the rape scene and Park View Garden -- detectives collected several items that also could link Quadra to the crimes.</p><p>Found in a box in the living room were a 15-inch metal chain, a pair of silver handcuffs, soldering wire and a length of rope with a metal link on one end.</p><p>A Department of Justice forensic specialist is expected to testify when the trial resumes Monday about the similarity between the chain found in Quadra's apartment and an unusually long chain that had been affixed between the handcuffs used during the attack.</p><p>Quadra spent several days in the hospital recovering from his abdominal wound. He is being held without bail at Sonoma County Jail during the trial.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer L.A. Carter at 568-5312 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com.</p>