Hello, I’m Jay Nicoll from Nicoll Investigations and this is an Ontario Cold Cases - The Podcast Special Edition on the Woodland Rapist.  Police arrest man over string of brutal 1990s child assaults in Brampton, Oakville and Kitchener  In the mid-1990s, police used DNA to link a trio of assaults in Kitchener, Brampton and Oakville parks to the same suspect — dubbed the “Woodland Rapist” in media coverage of the attacks and subsequent manhunt. Police have arrested and charged a man they believe is responsible for brutally attacking three children and who has eluded capture for more than 30 years, the Star has learned. In the mid-1990s, police used DNA to link a trio of assaults in Kitchener, Brampton and Oakville parks to the same suspect — a man who was dubbed the “Woodland Rapist” in media coverage of the attacks and subsequent manhunt. The arrest earlier this month follows decades of subsequent searching, including nightly neighbourhood canvases, a special police task force and re-examination years later by a cold case unit — all failing to net an arrest. It also comes as advances in technology have seen a number of prominent GTA cold cases solved through the use of new DNA technologies. Richard Neil, 64, was arrested on March 3 by Peel Police, according to public court records. He remains in custody ahead of a bail hearing. The police services involved in the cases did not immediately respond to requests for comment or confirm the tactics used to make this month’s arrest, but a source with knowledge of the investigation confirmed a public statement was being prepared regarding Neil’s arrest and the Project Woodlands police investigation. None of the allegations against Neil have been proven in court. Toronto criminal defence lawyer Kevin Gray, with Leo Adler Law, said they were contacted this week and are working to be retained to represent Neil. “He has no knowledge of these crimes and he’s innocent,” he said Neil told them. Police have long believed one man was responsible for three separate incidents between 1992 and 1995 in heavily wooded park areas of Kitchener, Brampton and Oakville. DNA evidence, police said then, linked the three assaults but turned up no matches in police databases investigators can use to try to match DNA with previous cases. That searching, however, has long been limited to arrested individuals who have been made to submit a sample to national databanks. In recent years, advancements in genetic genealogy have allowed investigators to compare samples obtained as evidence against DNA voluntarily submitted to databanks via popular websites like 23andMe to make other connections. The dates of the charges against Neil line up with the assaults detailed previously by police. in 1995, investigators made the rare move of releasing confidential, graphic details of the alleged crimes in order to help find the person responsible. In the first case, the Star reported police said a young boy was playing with friends in Kitchener’s Idlewood Park on Aug. 21, 1992, when a man asked if the kids wanted to look at some stolen bicycles. According to court documents on his recent arrest, Neil is alleged to have threatened a boy on that day with a knife and then sexually assaulted him. On Sept. 29, 1994, another boy was assaulted in Norton Place Park in Brampton. Almost a year later, on Aug. 31, 1995, a teen girl was forced into the wooded area of Wildwood Park in Oakville, allegedly at gunpoint. The court records show Neil was charged with using an imitation firearm in an assault on one victim. Police allegations filed in court against Neil also include one count of making child pornography, described as a “graphic computer file.” The unsolved cases left residents with the fear a serial rapist was living amongst them. In November 1995, dozens of auxiliary officers canvassed local neighbourhoods nightly looking for clues. Four years later, police reported they had received over 1,300 tips and interviewed some 1,000 subjects, hundreds of whom voluntarily provided DNA samples. Still, they found no promising leads. Investigators also used a Texas-based company to check via Russian satellite whether the licence plate of a suspected car belonging to the attacker — a reddish-brown Chevy Blazer or Ford Bronco, the Star reported at the time — could be seen from space. A multi-jurisdictional task force was launched to help catch the suspect, but was disbanded in 1996. In 2009, a new unit of Peel Police took on the cold case, speculating the suspect may have died, left the country or simply stopped. The DNA attached to the case was never matched any other unsolved sexual assaults in the nationwide databank. 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