How police tracked down fugitive rapist on other side of the country

On the side of the road this week, a woman in a relationship for 10 years learned the sickening truth about her longtime partner’s past.

On the side of the road this week, a woman in a relationship for 10 years learned the sickening truth about her longtime partner’s past.

“It can’t be him.”

Those are the tortured words of a woman whose life was turned upside down in the most disturbing way this week as her long-term boyfriend was handcuffed and walked away.

Detectives in the Californian city of Danville — 40km east of San Francisco — had just informed her that the man she lived with and had fallen in love with, was a convicted predator known as the Bad Breath Rapist.

Tuen Kit Lee, 55, was not the man he was purporting to be. His secret double life, that included a 10-year relationship with the flower shop owner girlfriend, had just come crumbling down.

His alias had for 16 years hidden the truth — that in 2005 he broke into the home of a waitress who worked at his family’s restaurant in Boston, held her at knifepoint, ziptied her hands and brutally raped her.

He was wearing a ski mask but his victim was able to identify him as she recognised the smell of her boss’s horrendous halitosis.

DNA evidence also tied him to the crime.

Lee was arrested in California this week after 16 years on the run. Picture: US Marshals

Lee was charged with rape and released on bail before his trial. However, he fled before his trial reached closing arguments in 2007. The jury delivered a guilty verdict in his absence.

Chris Tamayo, a senior inspector with the US Marshals Service in Northern California, has since relayed the difficult conversation officers had with the rapist’s girlfriend on the side of the road.

“It can’t be him, he’s a good man,” she told investigators.

Then a Massachusetts State Police investigator, who had tracked her boyfriend across the country, showed her a wanted poster with Lee’s photo on it.

“She broke into tears,” Mr Tamayo said. “She was completely shocked. I have some sympathy for her. Her life was just turned upside down. She had no clue who he was.”

Tuen Lee was given the creepy moniker Bad Breath Rapist.

He said the couple had met when Lee initially fled to New York before getting on a bus to San Francisco. The bus ride is where the pair crossed paths.

They lived together in a Diablo, east of San Francisco, but never got married.

Police said Lee stayed off the radar because he put “anything they had in her name”.

Their life in the wealthy Californian community went unnoticed despite Lee appearing on an episode of America’s Most Wanted.

The investigation had its breakthrough moment when Lee reached out to family members back home.

Tuen Lee is seen in the custody of US Marshals. Picture: US Marshals

Quincy Police Department Captain Daniel Guarente said they “got some information that he was out in California, and that he had possibly been in touch with family members and, based on that information, started looking into that and located him out in California”.

They used phone records to track him to Diablo and put surveillance on a home there where the pair had been living.

They followed their vehicle before pulling them over and arresting Mr Lee. He initially denied he was the man they wanted but later confessed. Fingerprint testing confirmed that after almost two decades, they had their man.

“His female companion, after 15 years of being together in California, never knew who he really was,” police said.

Lee was transported to the Danville Police Department for booking. His transfer to Massachusetts is pending.

“There are violent offenders out there who believe they can commit crimes and not be held accountable for their actions,” said Chief Inspector Sean LoPiccolo, the head of the US Marshals Service Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force.

“Tuen Lee was on the run for more than 16 years and the unwavering dedication by law enforcement to locate and arrest him hopefully brings peace of mind to the victim and her family,” he added.

Lee now faces life in prison.