A 42-year-old Colorado man is suspected of at least eight felonies after his DNA was matched to three sexual assaults in the metro area by using a genealogical database, according to an arrest affidavit.
Mackey McLain was arrested last month and charged with two counts of second-degree kidnapping and six counts of sexual assault, all felonies, according to Denver court records. The 42-year-old is being held in Denver’s Downtown Detention Center.
In all of the assaults, McLain allegedly posed as a rideshare driver to get the women into his vehicle, according to a Jefferson County sheriff’s arrest warrant.
According to the warrant, a woman was picked up in Denver and driven to her home in Blackhawk by a man she believed to be a rideshare driver early Jan. 6, 2024. She told investigators that she was drunk when she called the rideshare service and doesn’t remember anything before waking up in the car, parked on the side of U.S. 6 in Jefferson County, with the man sexually assaulting her.
The woman said she had gone to a club in downtown Denver with a few of her coworkers on Jan. 5, 2024. The group pregamed with sealed shots and didn’t drink anything at the bar, but they got split up, according to the arrest warrant.
She told investigators that the man drove her home after the assault and she called a friend to take her to the police station, who then sent her to St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood.
Nursing staff at the hospital conducted a sexual assault forensic exam, also known as a rape kit, to collect and preserve DNA evidence, sheriff’s officials said. The DNA sample was then entered into the Combined DNA Index System, a national database maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Two months later, investigators got a match.
CODIS didn’t match the DNA to any convicted offenders registered in the national database, but it matched it to evidence left in two unsolved sexual assault cases in Denver from Dec. 16, 2022, and Dec. 2, 2023, sheriff’s officials said.
In both cases, the women were at bars in Denver, got separated from their groups and were assaulted in a dark-colored car by a white man, according to the arrest affidavit. One of them was driven home by their attacker and the other told deputies she was left on the side of the street.
Sheriff’s officials submitted the DNA sample from the Jefferson County case to FamilyTreeDNA, an ancestry and genealogy company, in December 2024.
The company identified multiple people as potential matches, including McLain, according to the arrest affidavit. Sheriff’s officials did not say in the affidavit who else the company identified.
McLain was also pulled over in May 2024 by Denver police officers with a drunk woman in his backseat, the arrest affidavit stated. He told officers he was giving her a ride home, but she said she only got into the car because she thought he was an Uber driver.
An arrest warrant was issued for McLain in January after officers attempted to serve a warrant to take a DNA sample to compare to the DNA left at each of the assaults but couldn’t find the man. He was arrested more than a month later in Denver.
McLain is next scheduled to appear in Denver County Court on March 19 for a preliminary hearing.
Denver officials said they believe there may be more victims and are asking anyone with information to contact the police department’s Sex Crimes Unit at 720-913-6040.
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