An identical twin was recently sentenced to 16 years in prison and 10 years of probation after being convicted of rape and armed robbery that took place in 2004, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney’s (DA) Office.

The case had been complicated by the lack of technology to distinguish between one twin and the other, and the case has been closed now due to cutting-edge DNA testing, according to Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.

The suspect, Dwayne McNair, 36, was convicted in January of eight counts of aggravated rape and two counts of armed robbery. The sentencing was done by Suffolk Superior Court Judge Linda Giles.

According to the DA’s Office, evidenced surfaced in the recent trial that proved that McNair and a second man, Anwar Thomas, 35, abducted and sexually assaulted two women on separate dates in September 2004. On Sept. 21 of that year, McNair and Thomas kidnapped the first victim at gunpoint in the area of Forest Hills. They beat her with the handgun and drove her to a remote location where they sexually assaulted and robbed her. They released her in Franklin Park, where she was able to flag down a passing vehicle.

According to the DA’s Office, the second victim was abducted on the night of Sept. 29, 2004, as she walked alone in the area of Parker and Hillside streets on Mission Hill. McNair and Thomas forced the woman into a vehicle and struck her in the head with a gun repeatedly. She was taken to a wooded area where she was sexually assaulted and robbed. The victim was able to collect a condom used by one of the men as she gathered her clothing after the assault and provided it to Boston Police.

“The defendant’s crimes were nothing short of terrifying and brutal,” DA Daniel Conley said in a released statement. “They were the deliberately planned actions of a dangerous predator. Everyone who worked on this case, from prosecutors to police detectives to chemists and criminalists, removed a dangerous sexual predator from the street. But most of all, I want to thank the two women at the heart of this case, whose powerful testimony was so critical to its resolution. We could not have reached this result without their courage and determination. I hope they can take some satisfaction in seeing him held accountable at last.”

According to the DA’s Office, in 2012, Thomas pleaded guilty to his role in both assaults and is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence. Thomas also testified at his trial that he could distinguish between McNair and his identical twin brother, and that it was Dwayne McNair who had taken part in the assaults with him. At the time, DNA testing could not distinguish between the two twins, but prosecutors introduced evidence as the result of subsequent DNA testing using second-generation genome mapping. The results of this newer test showed that Dwayne McNair was two billion times more likely to be the source of the DNA evidence than his brother.

According to the DA’s Office, before imposing the sentence, Giles heard emotional impact statements prepared by the two women kidnapped and raped by McNair.

In a written statement, the survivor of the first attack wrote of feeling afraid, ashamed, and isolated.

“Those feelings and thoughts have disappeared over time,” she said in a statement read aloud by the trial prosecutor. “But because of the defendant’s actions I still feel I’m overly aware of the evil that may exist around me and afraid this could happen again to me or the people I love. I still work hard not let this affect me by trying to do things that make me happy and proud of myself. Although, I have realized I can never erase the nightmare that I experienced almost 14 years ago.”

According to the DA’s Office, the second woman McNair attacked addressed the court directly.

“I don’t know why but I’ve already been sentenced to life because I never got the chance to have a normal one. I never got the chance to be free,” she said. “But today, I will no longer be shackled. Today, I will no longer be held down. Today, I will not ‘Shut Up.’ I am not a victim. I am not a survivor. For it is I and I alone who can define me.”