Thursday, November 04, 1999
DNA testing points to 2 rapists
Tattoo clue gives police some hope
BY SHEILA McLAUGHLIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Victim's description of tattoo on rapist's arm.
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The rape of a woman in Symmes Township last month has been linked to another in Warren County. However, the man is not the serial rapist responsible for five other assaults on women and children in northeastern Hamilton County and Mason, police said Wednesday.
Hamilton County sheriff's officials said DNA evidence from the Oct. 17 rape of a 29-year-old woman at Wellington Place condominiums on Brisben Place matched samples taken in the Aug. 28 rape of a 45-year-old woman on Millbank Row in the Landen area of Deerfield Township.
Steve Barnett, sheriff's spokesman, said detectives learned of the match Tuesday, a revelation that steps up the importance of the investigation.
“We knew there were two guys on the loose anyway because Deerfield Township didn't match (the serial rapist). Now there are two by that same person, it shows the guy is a repeat offender and he's apparently not going to stop. It raises the urgency, of course. There's more widespread urgency and alarm,” Mr. Barnett said.
In each early morning attack, the rapist entered the condominiums through unlocked windows or doors.
The Landen woman told de tectives she woke up and found a man standing in her bedroom about 5 a.m. When she tried to scream, he cov ered her face with a sheet. She could not provide a clear description of the man.
In the Symmes attack, the rapist placed a pillow over the victim's face when she tried to fight him off. She described her attacker as white, 20 to 30 years old, 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall, with a medium build and a tattoo of a wing on his right biceps.
Detectives hope the tattoo will provide a break in solving the Symmes and Deerfield cases.
A rendering released by the sheriff's office may represent a partial tattoo, but it is all the Symmes woman remembered seeing, Mr. Barnett said.
Detectives have shown the rendering to professional tat too artists in the area, who described it as “amateurish,” Mr. Barnett said.
Anyone with information is urged to call the sheriff's office at 825-1500 or Crime Stoppers at 352-3040.
Unlike the serial rape cases in Montgomery, Colerain Township and Mason, the Symmes and Deerfield rapist was not wearing a ski mask, Mr. Barnett said.
A multiagency task force is still working to identify a red-haired, blue-eyed man responsible for a string of rapes in Montgomery, Colerain Township and Mason since April 1998. The rapes were linked through DNA.
The attacks include a 14-year-old on Essex Drive in Mason on April 13, 1998; a 12-year-old girl on Brookcrest Drive in Mason on July 25, 1998; a 27-year-old Mason woman at her Butler-Warren Road home on April 14, 1999; a 6-year-old girl on Baywind Drive in Montgomery on July 25, 1999; and a 10-year-old girl on John Gray Road in Colerain Township on Oct. 4, 1999.
Police say the serial rapist breaks into the houses through an unlocked window or door, and usually attacks his victims as they sleep. He has carried many of his victims, especially the children, outside to commit the rape, police said.
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