SAN DIEGO -- The man under arrest in the disappearance of Chelsea King has also been identified as a suspect in another attack at the same park the Poway teen was last seen.

10News has learned Candice Moncayo positively identified John Gardner as the man who attacked her last December on a trail near Lake Hodges. Her younger sister, Kayla Moncayo, wrote an article that appeared last Friday in the Silver Spur, the Rancho Bernardo High School paper. Moncayo wrote Candice was running on the trail when she "was tackled and thrown to the side of the running trail, caught off guard and without warning."

The attacker then "picked her up by her shoulders, shaking her relentlessly, which left bruises," the article said.

Moncayo wrote her sister fought back and elbowed the attacker in the nose. The blow gave Candice enough time to run away, and she then called police from a nearby home.

Candice Moncayo described her attacker as a white man, 6 feet 2 inches tall, with brown hair and eyes -- a description that matches Gardner.

The article said, "All that was left of the ... attacker were the bruises he left on her and the DNA the police were able to swab from her elbow."

That DNA evidence may have tied Gardner to Moncayo's attack and Chelsea's disappearance. 10News first reported investigators already linked a DNA sample from underwear belonging to Chelsea found near Lake Hodges to Gardner.

Kayla Moncayo told 10News her sister positively identified Gardner from a photo as her attacker Sunday night. The photo was emailed to the Colorado Springs Police Department. The 23-year-old Candice Moncayo is a college student in Colorado.

A Sheriff's spokeswoman confirmed they are looking into Moncayo's attack but would not elaborate.

According to public records, Gardner committed a forcible lewd act on a child and false imprisonment in 2000. A 13-year-old neighbor girl accused him of repeatedly punching her in the face and touching her genitalia at Gardner's mother's Rancho Bernardo townhouse, which is about a mile from Rancho Bernardo Community Park. The girl said she went to the townhouse after Gardner invited her in to watch a movie.

Gardner was sentenced to six years in prison and served five years before he was released in September 2005. He was on probation until 2008. He registered as a sex offender using his grandmother's Lake Elsinore address but was reportedly staying with his mother.

Dr. Matthew Carroll, a psychiatrist who interviewed Gardner after the 2000 assault, described him as "callous" and said he lacked remorse, making him "an extremely poor candidate for any sexual offender treatment," according to court records.

"It is my opinion that (the defendant) would be a continued danger to underage girls in the community," Carroll wrote as he recommended the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. A sentencing memorandum from the District Attorney's Office said prosecutors asked for a six-year sentence to resolve the case without a trial and spare the victim from testifying.