WA WA - Tracey Brazzel, 22, Mill Creek, 26 May 1995

Detectives have a lead in two separate 1995 cold cases after they say DNA samples were linked to a 43-year-old sex offender now at the Stafford Creek Correctional Center.

The sex offender, who is serving time for indecent exposure with sexual motivation, is suspected in the death of Patti Berry and the disappearance of Tracey Brazzel. He has not been charged in either case.

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Danny Ross Giles earlier this week was quietly charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the 1995 death of Patti Berry, 26, and the disappearance of Tracey Brazzel, 22.

He was arrested Friday at the state’s Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island, where he’s been locked up since 2011, awaiting a separate civil trial to determine whether he is a sexually violent predator.

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He was behind bars, serving time for exposing himself to two college-aged women near the University of Washington in 2005. Giles also has convictions for a 1987 rape in Lynnwood, peeping and other offenses against women and girls, starting in his teens and continuing into middle age. Over the years Giles repeatedly refused to cooperate with sex offender treatment, ....

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Attorneys for a convicted rapist charged with two 1995 cold-case killings say Snohomish County prosecutors are trying to prop up a pair of weak murder charges by taking them to trial as a matched set.

It would be unfair to Danny Ross Giles for a single jury to decide whether sufficient evidence connects him to Patti Berry’s killing and the separate disappearance and presumed death of Tracey Brazzel, his public defenders said in court papers filed last week...

But forensic tests link Giles to genetic evidence gathered years ago from both women’s cars, prosecutors say.

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A judge made clear Wednesday he questions whether prosecutors have enough evidence to properly stage a single trial for a convicted rapist accused of two 1995 “cold-case” killings...

Superior Court Judge Bruce Weiss told prosecutors to return to court Thursday morning ready to answer some tough questions.

Based on what he heard during Wednesday's hearing, the judge said, he wonders whether sufficient evidence — not just theories — show that what happened to Berry and Brazzel are part of the same criminal conduct. That standard must be met for a single trial.

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A sex offender recently convicted of murder in a nearly two-decades-old cold case won’t face his second murder trial until next year.The defense team for Danny Giles needs more time to investigate allegations that he is responsible for the May 1995 disappearance and presumed death of Tracey Brazzel, a judge was told Tuesday. Giles’ DNA reportedly was found on Brazzel’s vehicle. He also allegedly admitted to being in the 22-year-old woman’s Lynnwood apartment.The trial now is scheduled for April. A jury last month convicted Giles of murdering Patti Berry in July 1995. Superior Court Judge Bruce Weiss had severed the two cases, forcing prosecutors to try them separately.

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The state Court of Appeals has upheld the murder conviction of a man accused in the stabbing death of a woman who disappeared after work in 1995.

The Daily Herald reports (http://bit.ly/2gsOQkF ) the court denied 48-year-old Danny Giles’ request for a new trial Monday...

Giles was sentenced in 2014 to nearly 48 years in prison for Patti Berry’s death.

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