Riverside police have arrested a man they believe kidnapped a UC Riverside student in June, an arrest aided by a fingerprint and the photographic memory of the victim who remained remarkably calm during her ordeal.

Former UCR student Donald Earl Rosenbek Jr., 30, of Cathedral City, was apprehended at his residence late Tuesday, Oct. 7, by the Police Department’s Metro team. He was booked into Robert Presley Detention Center on suspicion of kidnapping, assault likely to cause great bodily injury and false imprisonment. Bail was set at $500,000. Rosenbek is due to be arraigned Thursday.

Rosenbek attended UCR between 2002 and 2006 without earning a degree, university spokeswoman Kris Lovekin said.

But Rosenbek has no apparent other ties to Riverside. On his Facebook page, he says he graduated from Desert Hot Springs High and lists his occupation as a bartender at the Escena Golf Club in Palm Springs. So it was a mystery to investigators why, if he did commit the crime, he suddenly showed up again in Riverside.

“The case all over is just unusual,” Rick Wheeler, the lead detective on the case, said at a news conference Wednesday.

Wheeler said it was surprising that the crime was committed “in broad daylight.” But what was most unusual, Wheeler said, was “The fact that the victim was able to talk the suspect out of doing harm to her.”

About 3:15 p.m. on June 8, the woman was walking to her car in a parking garage on Iowa Avenue next to the University Village shopping center near UCR. A man snuck up behind her, threw a sheet over her and put her in the back seat of what the woman described as a grey, four-door Nissan Sentra – the type of car police seized from Rosenbek on Tuesday.

The man tied her up in the back seat and struck her several times before driving her around the city for 30 minutes. During that time, the woman was able to free her hands and remove the head covering.

The woman, a psychology student, was able to draw a feeling of remorse out of the man and persuade him to let her go, detectives said. He eventually drove her back to the garage.

“We owe a lot to the victim, who never lost her cool,” Police Chief Sergio Diaz said.

The woman provided an accurate description of the man, right down to the mole on Rosenbek’s left cheek, Diaz said.

Police were able to lift a fingerprint off items the man touched, and in early October police were told that the print belonged to Rosenbek. The victim then picked him out of a photo lineup, Wheeler said, and police obtained an arrest warrant Oct. 3.

Rosenbek has four misdemeanor convictions: one for driving under the influence, and in a second case, two for inflicting corporal injury on a spouse and one for battery on spouse or cohabitant. Rosenbek violated his probation for failing to pay $400 into a domestic violence fund, according to Superior Court records.

UCR police are investigating whether Rosenbek might have attempted two kidnappings reported on campus on April 12. So far they haven’t found a connection, Lovekin said.

Riverside police are checking with other departments for similarities between the June kidnapping and incidents elsewhere.

“We don’t know what this person has done that we haven’t caught him on yet,” Wheeler said.