Saturday, March 18, 2000
Police step up hunt for serial rapist
Anniversary of attacks approaches
BY SHEILA McLAUGHLIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
MASON — Nearly two years after a serial rapist attacked his first victim and with a key date approaching, members of a multiagency task force are stepping up efforts to find the suspect.
This weekend, Mason police are going back to the neighborhood where the first three rapes occurred, warning residents to stay safe and trying to jog their memories for new clues.
The task force, created last August after a fourth attack was linked by DNA to the same offender, gathers on Tuesday for the first time since November — a month after the last attack in Colerain Township.
Next Friday, task force members hope that a noted Canadian detective, an expert in geographic profiling, will help them pinpoint where the rapist might live.
The push to solve the case takes on greater urgency with the approach of April 13 and 14 — dates the rapist has begun his attacks each year since 1998. Two other rapes occurred July 25 in both years.
“One of the fears is with the advent of good weather, this individual will come out again. The cold weather seems to keep him in,” said Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen, whose office is a clearinghouse for the task force.
Authorities say the masked man, who is reported to have blue eyes and a reddish mustache, breaks into the houses through an unlocked window or door, and usually attacks his victims as they sleep.
He has carried some of his victims outside to commit the rapes, police said.
Detectives said they have spent the winter months chasing a few new leads and reviewing their case files to make sure they didn't overlook anything that could lead them to the rapist.
Despite a $2,000 reward, the investigation appears to be at a standstill.
“We're still getting information, but it's not going anywhere,” said Mason Detective Patrick Ellis, who has been on the case almost exclu sively since the first attack occurred in the city on April 13, 1998.
Task force members hope to make some headway when D. Kim Rossmo, a Vancouver police officer who literally wrote the book on an investigative method called geographic profiling, arrives in Cincinnati on Friday.
He will meet with detectives to compile information from the local crimes. Using mathematical calculations, he will attempt to determine where the rapist lives.
That question has stumped investigators because of the locations of the attacks, which spread from Mason in Warren County to the far west side of Hamilton County.
“It's just to get an idea where this person may live, where his next attack may come from — anything that may help investigators with respect to those issues,” Mr. Allen said.
Starting today, Mason police will spend two days canvassing a middle-class neighborhood at Butler Warren Road and Western Row where all of the attacks have occurred in that city.
“We want to jog their awareness, to tell them to report suspicious activity, to lock their doors and windows,” Mason Chief Ron Ferrell said.
“We don't take anything for granted. It would be naive not to be sensitive to the fact that the rapes happened there one day apart in April.”
Police plan to follow up with a town meeting by month's end to discuss the incidents and offer safety advice.
Two Mason officers also will offer a series of three self-defense classes for interested residents, Chief Ferrell said. Dates have not been set for either event.
“We're very much aware that warm weather seems to bring him out,” Chief Ferrell said. “We want our community to be as ready as possible.”
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