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Brazil man arrested in California senior citizen sexual assault cold case
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- California authorities have charged a Brazil, Ind., man with the home invasion rape of an elderly woman in San Jose 15 years ago.
The victim died of natural causes in 2011. However, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office was notified earlier this year that DNA left at the senior living apartment crime scene matched a 43-year-old sex crime registrant now living half a country away. That was in western Indiana where James Aaron Whisenand was taken into custody late last week thanks to the assistance of Indiana State Police, the U.S. Marshals, the Clay County Sheriff and the Brazil Police Department.
“The Indiana State Police Criminal Division knows no boundaries when it comes to investigations,” Putnamville State Police Post spokesman Matt Ames said in a post on Twitter about the defendant now living more than 2,000 miles from the scene of the crime.
A press release from the County of Santa Clara Cold Case Unit said authorities convinced Whisenand to come down to the Brazil Police Department to fill out forms related to his sex crime registration. He was met by San Jose Police Special Victims Unit Sgt. Sean Pierce and Det. John Moutzouridis, the original detectives who investigated the case in 2008.
The Clay County Prosecutor’s Office is handling Whisenand’s extradition proceedings in Indiana. He is being held without bail pending his return to Santa Clara County.
If convicted of all charges, Whisenand could be sentenced to life in prison.
“As our forensic technology grows, the reach of justice becomes longer,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “We don’t forget or forgive those who hurt people in our community.”
On Jan. 6, 2008, Whisenand reportedly entered the 61-year-old woman’s first-floor apartment. Wearing a ski mask, Whisenand allegedly punched the victim in the face, breaking her nose, and then choked her before sexually assaulting her multiple times. No suspects were identified at the time.
In March 2024, the DA’s Office Crime Lab was notified that the suspect’s DNA from the crime scene, uploaded to the national CODIS database in 2008, matched Whisenand, a sex registrant for a misdemeanor sexual battery conviction in 2023.
The DA’s Cold Case Unit, San Jose Police and the Crescent City Police worked together to confirm Whisenand’s DNA in August 2024.
Santa Clara County Court records show that in 2008, at the time of the rape, Whisenand lived with his then wife just two blocks from the victim’s senior living facility.
Anyone who has any additional information about Whisenand is asked to call (408) 792-2466 or email coldcasetips@dao.sccgov.org.
The cold case unit was established in 2011, and since then has solved more than 30 cold case murders from as early as 1969.
Adding sexual assault investigations to its cold case unit inventory after receiving a federal grant in 2021, the DA’s Office has filed charges in five cold case sexual assaults dating back as far as 1994.