'Bad breath rapist' from Boston area caught after 16 years at large in California

MAY 30, 20241:38 AM ET
By The Associated Press



Tuen Kit Lee is led away in handcuffs on Tuesday, May 28, 2024, in Danville, Calif. The fugitive dubbed the "bad breath rapist" was arrested in the San Francisco Bay area more than 16 years after he fled following his conviction for sexually assaulting a co-worker in Massachusetts, authorities said this week.
U.S. Marshals Service/AP

DANVILLE, Calif. — A fugitive dubbed the "bad breath rapist" has been arrested in the San Francisco Bay area more than 16 years after he fled following his conviction for sexually assaulting a coworker in Massachusetts, authorities said this week.

Tuen Kit Lee was found guilty at a 2007 trial of the kidnapping and rape of the young woman at knifepoint at her home in Quincy, south of Boston, the U.S. Marshals Service said in a statement Tuesday. He went on the run before he was to be sentenced.

Officials kept the case alive in the media and Lee's photo appeared several times on TV's "America's Most Wanted." After images surfaced on social media of a man believed to be Lee, investigators were able to track him to California's Contra Costa County, the service said.

U.S. Marshals and police officers arrested Lee on Tuesday after seeing him and a woman leave a "multi-million dollar residence" near Danville, just east of Oakland, officials said. After his car was pulled over, Lee initially provided a false name but confessed when pressed about his true identity, authorities said. He was later identified via fingerprints.

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