DNA match leads to arrest in decade-long Indianapolis rape case

A DNA match finally gave Indianapolis detectives the name they had been chasing for years: Leonel Catalan, a 51-year-old accused of a five-attack sexual assault pattern that stretched from 2013 to January 2024 on the city’s north side.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department announced the arrest on May 6, saying Catalan’s DNA matched evidence gathered in multiple rape investigations that had been moving separately for years before investigators recognized the overlap. IMPD said the case had grown out of individual reports that shared the same basic signature, with similar timing, locations and method bringing the incidents into one serial investigation.

Prosecutors filed 30 charges against Leonel Catalan Torreblanca, including rape, kidnapping, burglary and strangulation. WRTV reported that some of the charges carried 20-to-50-year sentences if convicted. FOX59 said prosecutors planned to seek a greater-than-standard bond, while investigators described the case as “horrifying” and “unspeakable.”

The forensic break came after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement entered a detainee profile into CODIS, according to the case details. WRTV said the Indianapolis crime lab received a detainee hit on April 21, 2026, and the FBI confirmed the suspect’s identity the next day. IMPD’s Violent Crimes Unit then found Catalan at a relative’s house and arrested him on April 23. Hoodline reported that Catalan-Torreblanca made his initial appearance on April 27 and remained held in the Marion County Jail as the case moved toward trial.

Investigators said the allegations covered five separate home-invasion sexual assaults, with WTHR linking them to March 2013, June 2015, September 2016, October 2016 and January 24, 2024. The reported locations included Ashton Brook Apartments, Carlyle Court Apartments, the 9000 block of Guilford Avenue and The Lodge at Trails Edge near East 96th Street and North College Avenue. Police also said the pattern was concentrated in a narrow corridor north of East 86th Street and south of East 96th Street, near College Avenue and the Monon Trail.

The newest case in the series involved a victim who woke to a man standing over her bed after a break-in through a sliding back door. Investigators with IMPD, the FBI, the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office and the Indianapolis-Marion County Forensic Services Agency still believe more victims may be out there, and they want anyone with unreported contact tied to Catalan to come forward before the full scope of the decade-long pattern is finally locked in.