Police used DNA evidence to make the arrest of Peter Jacob Inouye on Monday in the crime in which a man previously arrested was cleared by DNA.

More on how DNA evidence works

Olympia police Cmdr. Tor Bjornstad said detectives collected the Inouye's DNA recently while they were watching him.

"While they were surveilling him, he spit on the street, and as soon as he walked away or left the area, they recovered the sample from the street," Bjornstad told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

The DNA profile from the saliva matched DNA evidence collected from the victim, he said.

Inouye was arrested shortly before 7 p.m. as he returned to his parents' house a few blocks from the rape scene.

Detectives identified him as a person of interest in the case after learning he had been at the victim's home in the last six or seven months during an event to help her and her family after her father died.

"Some friends and relatives were doing some sort of a work party for (the family) after a death in the family, and he had taken part in that," Bjornstad said.

Inouye's brother told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News that Inouye could not have committed the crime because he was at home with his wife and daughter at the time of the rape.

Police said that was not the case.

"I don't think he was home with his wife when this happened," Bjornstad said.

Police told KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Inouye resembles a police sketch of the attacker that was released last Friday.

He was booked for investigation of first-degree rape of a child, second-degree assault and first-degree burglary.

Inouye is the subject of a domestic violence protection order filed in Pierce County Superior Court last November. The order was denied because the petitioner failed to appear at a court hearing, KIRO 7 Eyewitness News reported.

Last week, a DNA test cleared David Lukas Lynch, 23, of rape charges. Lynch, who police said had been living in an elaborate underground bunker, is currently at Western State Hospital under a civil commitment that is separate from the criminal case.