BELLEFONTE, Pa. — Results of genetic tests link an Ohio truck driver to a Maine runaway the man is accused of raping and murdering.

The odds are 400 million to 1 that another man shares the same characteristics as the suspect, James R. Cruz Jr., researchers say.

Cruz, 36, is accused of kidnaping Dawn Marie Birnbaum, raping and killing her and dumping her body in a snowbank near Interstate 80. The FBI is checking whether he is involved in similar crimes in the Midwest.

Trooper William Madden testified at the trucker’s preliminary hearing Friday that genetic information from his blood matched semen found on Birnbaum, whose body was found March 24 on an entrance ramp to Pennsylvania Route 26 near Bellefonte.

The odds against another white man having the same characteristics in his DNA are 660 million to 1, Madden said, citing a state police report. For a man of Hispanic descent, the odds against were 400 million to 1, he said.

A hair from Cruz was found beneath a tightly bound rope used to strangle Birnbaum, FBI agent Chester Blithe said. Also, one of Birnbaum’s hairs was found on the passenger-side door of the defendant’s truck.

As Magistrate Ronald Horner ordered Cruz to stand trial, Birnbaum’s mother, Nancy Lindeman of Gary, Ind., hugged a tiger-cub doll she held with a scrapbook throughout the hearing.

The defendant’s wife, Sheila, clutched her husband’s handcuffed hands before deputies took him away.

Defense attorney Deborah Lux argued that Cruz and Birnbaum, 17, had consensual sex since there was no evidence of trauma other than ropes around the teen-ager’s neck and wrists.

She also said the state hadn’t proved that Birnbaum traveled with Cruz against her will.

“She was a prisoner in a truck with Mr. Cruz,” Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar responded. “One woman might resist. Another woman might be fearful and not fight back.”

He said the rope around the wrist “does not appear to be consistent with consensual sexual intercourse.”

Forensic pathologist Isidore Mihalakis said a person would have to be strong to kill Birnbaum in the manner in which she died — strangled by a grease-stained rope wrapped across her neck three times, he said.

He said the woman would have passed out after 10 to 15 seconds but that she might have survived if the rope had been loosened before four minutes had passed.

“It took a sustained effort to do it,” Gricar said. “There was plenty of time to change one’s mind. There was a clear decision to take a life.”

Cruz, from New Waterford, Ohio, is accused of murder, rape, kidnapping, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, robbery and theft. The woman’s purse, coat, shoes and pants never were found.

Lindeman said her daughter had run away from several Indiana schools before being sent to the Elan School in Poland, Maine, about 18 months ago.