A woman testified in court Wednesday about her alleged rape that took place while she was babysitting in Boca Raton more than four decades ago.
John MacLean, now 71, is on trial for the 1976 rape of a 15-year-old girl.
MacLean was arrested in Boca Raton in 2012 on two counts of armed sexual battery.
According to a police report, MacLean raped the teen who was babysitting two younger children on Oct. 16, 1976.
The girl told authorities she was watching TV that evening when she heard a knock on the door. When she heard the knocking a second time, she looked out the window and didn't see anyone. When she turned around, she was allegedly confronted by a man armed with a gun and wearing pantyhose over his face.
"Don't worry, I won't hurt you," the intruder told the girl, according to the report. "Just don't scream and nobody will get hurt."
The masked man walked her out to the patio, told her he wanted to see her naked, pulled down his pants and told her to hold his penis. He then took her back inside the house, put her on a bed, spread her legs apart and raped her, according to the report.
The case went unsolved for 35+ years until Detective Mynor Cruz submitted a DNA sample from the evidence gathered at the crime scene for analysis.
In 2012, a sample of the victim's semen-stained jeans and a vaginal swab from a hospital rape kit after a Boca Raton rape case from 1977 matched MacLean's DNA, police said.
More than four decades later, the now-adult victim was forced to face her alleged attacker in court as she recalled the ordeal. She said she couldn't see the man's pantyhose-distorted face, but prosecutors pointed to the DNA evidence as proof that MacLean was the man responsible.
However, one of MacLean's attorneys called the DNA evidence unreliable.
"What they bring you is one small piece of denim and a piece of denim with a broken chain of custody," defense attorney Christopher Fox-Lent told the jury, according to a report by Local 10 News.
MacLean, who lived in Pompano Beach at the time of his arrest, has a criminal history dating back to 1979, including arrests on robbery, burglary and sexual assault charges.
MacLean also faces trial for the 1977 rape of a Boca Raton woman while her two children were in the home.
The investigation continues.