Child rapist held in Carson City now back in Canada

Staff reports

An accused Canadian child rapist and convicted Nevada sex offender was extradited to Canada over the weekend to face charges in a 1979 brutal child rape.

Canadian authorities came to Reno to bring Wilbur Ventling, 63, back to Vernon, British Columbia, on Saturday, the Calgary Herald of Alberta reported Monday.

Ventling will be tried in the rape of a 9-year-old girl he allegedly lured into the woods nearly three decades ago. Ventling has been in custody since his arrest at his Carson City home in October on the Canadian warrant charging him with rape and causing bodily harm with intent to wound.

Court records reveal DNA taken from Ventling at the time of his arrest matched DNA found at the scene of the crime. The results confirmed a DNA match made in 2005 when a Canadian officer reviewing the unsolved rape case submitted evidence for international DNA comparison and found a match with Ventling, who had been required to submit his DNA to Nevada because of a 1980 conviction as a sex offender.

Ventling was originally arrested in the Vernon rape case in 1979, but disappeared from a psychiatric hospital just a day after being ordered to undergo an evaluation; he later fled to the U.S., court documents show.

Released from a Nevada prison in 1997, where he served time on a Las Vegas child sexual assault charge, Ventling has lived a quiet existence here. He bought a new home in east Carson City in 2006, and worked as a hairdresser and leather craftsman.