How Aurora cops say they linked rape suspect to crime

A white cooler outside a house on Aurora's west side was the starting point that led police detectives to arrest Cedric T. Flax for the kidnapping and rape of a 26-year-old mother of two just before Christmas last year.

Detectives took the stand Friday in the Aurora 19-year-old's DuPage County trial to detail how the evidence led them to Flax.

Aurora Detectives Angel Nieves and Scott Reid said the woman spotted the cooler as they drove her around an area where she said her unknown attacker had taken her just before letting her go. She told them she saw the cooler as she was being led up the steps of the house on Spruce Street by Flax who was covering her head with a coat. However, she couldn't initially lead them to the house on Andover Circle on the city's east side where she told investigators the attack had occurred because her assailant had shielded her face better at that location. It turns out she was two blocks off, police said.

Detectives testified the house on Spruce Street was rented by Flax's mother. When they ran a check on other occupants of the house, they came up with Flax. He also had used an address on the 1200 block of Andover Circle during prior run-ins with law enforcement because he had relatives who lived there and had a key to the duplex as well, Reid said.

The detectives said Flax took the victim to that duplex on Andover because he knew it was unoccupied after his relatives had skipped out on the lease. Police evidence technicians also testified that they recovered items at both houses from Flax and the woman.

When police showed the victim a lineup of six mug shots containing potential suspects, she was able to identify Flax, the detectives said. An arrest warrant was approved and less than a week after the attack, Flax turned himself in, police officials said.

He is claiming the sex was consensual and Senior Assistant Public Defender Mike Mara said Flax will take the stand in his own defense sometime next week after prosecutors Ann Celine O'Hallaren and Anne Therieau wrap up their case. The jury will also hear about DNA and body fluid samples matching both Flax and the victim being recovered at both houses.

The woman has already testified that she had never met or known Flax before his arrest and did not consent to any of the sex acts. Flax is accused of sneaking into the woman's car as it was left unattended and running at a gas station late Dec. 9, 2008. The woman said he pointed a gun at her head when she returned to the car and then drove her to the house on Andover where she was sodomized and choked. Prosecutors showed the jury video surveillance from the gas station of someone getting into the back seat of the woman's car as it sat idling. The person in the video was wearing a jacket similar to one recovered at Flax's mother's house on Spruce Street, police said.

Testimony resumes Tuesday.