About a decade ago, Fayetteville, N.C., was terrorized by a series of rapes committed on and around a major thoroughfare on the northern side of the city.

From March 2006 until January 2008, the police said, a man they called the Ramsey Street Rapist assaulted victims in and around housing complexes, like the Village at Carver Falls, and the apartments on Bubble Creek Court.

For more than 10 years, his identity eluded investigators. But this year, they tried a new tack: mining DNA data collected through genealogy websites — the same method that California officials used to find the man believed to be the Golden State Killer in April.

On Wednesday, the Fayetteville Police Department arrested Darold Wayne Bowden, 43, of Linden, north of Fayetteville. He faces dozens of criminal charges in connection with six rape investigations, including multiple counts of first-degree forcible rape, first-degree burglary and felony larceny.