A man in Washington will spend the rest of his life in prison after a judge convicted him of raping a 12-year-old girl as her grandmother and 16-year-old sister watched during a home invasion in 2018.
A Yakima County judge on Tuesday sentenced Daniel John Arnold, 34, to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 80 years for the brutal attack on the teenager that shocked the entire Yakima community.
Joe Brusic, Yakima County Prosecutor, said in a statement after the sentencing hearing that it was one of the worst sexual assault cases he and the entire prosecutor’s office had ever been involved in. He praised the judge by saying that Arnold deserved every month locked up because of the heinous nature and cruelty of the home invasion and subsequent rape of the 12-year-old.
The judge also said that the case involved one of the most depraved crimes he had ever heard of.
Judge Jeffrey Swan found Arnold guilty of various charges during a bench trial last month. According to the prosecutor’s office, all charges against him included enhancements for a deadly weapon. The charges included first-degree rape, second-degree child rape, two counts of second-degree assault, and three counts of first-degree kidnapping.
The assault, kidnapping, and burglary charges carried enhancements for being sexually motivated.
The prosecutor said that the sentence was ten and a half years above the standard maximum sentence because the court found that the first-degree rape charge involved a potentially destructive impact on people other than the victim.
A woman told law enforcement that on January 23, 2018, she had gone home with her granddaughter, who was only 12 years old. As she was parking her car in the garage, Arnold suddenly appeared and ordered her and her granddaughter into the house.
According to court documents, Arnold was armed with a switchblade and used packing tape to tie the woman up while threatening to murder the teenager.
The teenager’s 16-year-old sister came home and found Arnold holding the knife to her little sister’s throat and her grandmother bound. The intruder ordered her to get on the floor, and the 16-year-old and her grandmother were forced to watch as Arnold raped the 12-year-old girl.
When Arnold put his knife on the floor, the older girl quickly picked it up and stabbed him in the upper chest. The 34-year-old man punched her in the face and broke her glasses. She managed to help her sister and grandmother get to a neighbor’s house.
Arnold fled the home on foot before the police arrived. They spent several hours searching for him but eventually found the wounded man hiding on a neighboring property about two blocks from the grandmother’s home. He was hiding on the back porch of the property and used an outdoor carpet to cover himself up. They also found the 12-year-old’s phone on him.
Arnold and the family did not know each other before the incident.
Listed as a high school dropout, Arnold has an extensive criminal history dating back to 2004. He was previously convicted of motor vehicle theft, fourth-degree assault, identity theft, burglary, eluding, and theft.
He is also still awaiting trial for a 2010 rape and kidnapping charge against him after DNA linked him to that attack.
