Rape suspect changes his plea

Published 1:30 am Monday, March 2, 2026

PORT ANGELES — A Port Angeles man entered an Alford plea to charges that he raped two Sequim teenagers near Dungeness River Railroad Bridge Park.

Daniel L. Sigmon, 26, agreed to a tentative 10-year sentence on Feb. 19 in Clallam County Superior Court as part of a plea deal. Judge Elizabeth Stanley found him guilty of two charges of second-degree rape of a child.

She scheduled Sigmon’s sentencing hearing for 9 a.m. March 26.

Sigmon remained in the Clallam County Jail on Sunday.

Clallam County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Michele Devlin recommended 120 months in jail for Sigmon, and his release would be subject to the state’s Indeterminate Sentence Review Board.

Stanley said she’d consider the prosecution’s recommendation but wasn’t bound to it and could impose a different sentence if warranted.

Sigmon, who has no criminal history, faces a standard range of 102 months to 136 months in prison. He also would be required to register as a sex offender, have a lifetime of no contact with the victims, and, if released, he would be subject to a lifetime of community custody, according to the recommended sentence.

Stanley read Sigmon’s written statement in court. An Alford plea doesn’t admit guilt, but it acknowledges the state likely would present evidence to a jury that would convict him.

As part of the plea agreement, four other counts were dismissed.

Those include two additional counts of second-degree rape of a child and a charge for second-degree child molestation in addition to second-degree assault-strangulation.

Clallam County Superior Court Judge Simon Barnhart previously signed off on a no-contact order between Sigmon and the two teenagers in addition to any female younger than 16.

Arrest, warrants

Sigmon was arrested on Sept. 9, 2025, after law enforcement spent months looking for him and waiting on DNA test results.

Officers responded to Railroad Bridge Park at 10:47 p.m. June 19, 2024, for a reported missing 13-year-old girl. She and her friend, also 13, were not found until 12:24 a.m. in the park with Sigmon.

Court documents state the teenagers told officers at the park they were with the man who said he was 19, his name was Danny, his dog was named Kevin, and they were hiding from a bear.

Sigmon, later identified by a Sequim Police Department body camera, was allowed to leave as no allegations were made at the scene.

About an hour later, one of the teens’ siblings contacted law enforcement to share that her sister was sexually assaulted and that both girls were inappropriately touched, according to court documents.

Sigmon was not found later that day.

One girl was given a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) exam and the other a strangulation exam on June 20, 2024, at Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles.

Healthy Families of Clallam County conducted separate child forensic interviews on June 25-26.

The girls said Sigmon approached them while they were swimming and offered to make them a fire.

Court documents stated one girl said Sigmon took her away from the fire and sexually assaulted her, and she feared being killed and felt paralyzed.

They continued to hide after they saw law enforcement and later a bear. The first girl said Sigmon molested her and the other girl said he pulled her back any time she tried to move, hurting her throat and causing pain to breathe or talk. Sigmon also touched her inappropriately, court documents stated.

The girls told forensic interviewers they didn’t know Sigmon, and he pressured them to stay longer and they feared being hurt.

Clallam County Sheriff’s Office detectives found Sigmon living in a Port Angeles apartment in April 2025, and they served a search warrant for his DNA in July 2025. He voluntarily supplied it, according to court documents.

Via search warrants of Sigmon’s social media accounts, detectives matched Sigmon via an online photo on his account with a Sequim Police officer’s body cam footage from June 20, 2024, and they placed him via GPS location services at the time of the incidents.

Detectives received Sigmon’s DNA results on Sept. 5 from the State Patrol Crime Laboratory, and the SANE and strangulation exams stated there was “very strong support” that Sigmon was the male contributor to the DNA found in the samples.

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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. He can be reached by email at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.