Rapes, Burglaries May Be Work of 1 Man

Police in four Southern California communities believe that as many as 22 rapes, attempted rapes and burglaries involving mostly elderly women may be the work of one man.

The latest attack, Tuesday morning in Anaheim, involved a 71-year-old woman raped by an intruder who came through an open window while she slept. The method was similar to many of the 21 other cases in Anaheim, Fullerton, Claremont and Santa Ana over the last 10 months.

“If we compare the method of entry, time period and the description (of the attacker) we have from the other incidents, there’s a strong possibility that the same person is responsible,” said Anaheim Police Lt. Bill L. Wright. “However, we have no physical evidence that it’s just one person.”

A dozen of the crimes against older women have occurred in Anaheim since Dec. 12, including three in the last month, Wright said. “We have here in Anaheim 12 incidents where there’s a strong possibility that the same person is responsible for them.”

Police investigators in Fullerton, Santa Ana and Claremont say similar crimes, with victims giving similar descriptions of their attacker, have prompted them to work closely with authorities in Anaheim.

“There’s no real task force,” said Fullerton Police Sgt. Wade Richmond. “We’re just giving it a high priority . . . and working very closely with the other police departments.

“We’re going strictly by method of operation. This person attacks elderly white women late at night. He attacks them during a deep sleep, commits a rape and uses threats of injury if they don’t cooperate.”

Identifying a suspect in these cases is doubly difficult, authorities said, because many of the elderly victims suffer from impaired vision and hearing and many were not very alert because they were awakened from deep sleep by their attacker.

In Fullerton, four rapes of women between the ages of 38 and 64 during the month of March seem to fit the pattern, Richmond said. All lived alone, and all were asleep or preparing for bed when the rapist entered their homes through an unlocked door or window.

In Santa Ana, an 80-year-old woman reported being raped twice by the same man--in December and again in March. Both times, the rapist came through the window of her mobile home, raped her and took her money, she told police.

Less than two weeks after the second incident, a man of similar description entered the mobile home of a 75-year-old woman, “just down the street from the first victim,” said Santa Ana Police Sgt. Gary Adams.

The attacker came in through a window, but the woman successfully fought off his rape attempt. “He took some money from her, though, and ran,” Adams said. Both Santa Ana women lived alone.

In Anaheim, the list of crimes against elderly women includes three burglaries, eight rapes and the death last week of an 86-year-old woman. She had called police to report an intruder entering her apartment through a window. She failed to call the 911 emergency number and then, in her confusion and apparent panic, gave police the wrong address. She was dead when officers finally arrived.

An autopsy showed that the victim, Gertrude Roberts, died of a heart attack. There was no evidence of rape, police said, and the case is being investigated as a homicide.

In the most recent attack, an intruder used an open window to enter a mobile home in the 2600 block of East La Palma Avenue in Anaheim, about 3:30 Tuesday morning. The woman awoke with the rapist on top of her, police said.

Before the attack, while the 71-year-old woman slept, the rapist cut her telephone lines with a knife, which he left at the scene. Police would not say if the knife belonged to the victim or the attacker.

In Claremont, three women--ages 78 to 91--were attacked during evening or nighttime hours in the middle of the week at their homes. “All were raped, all robbed,” said Claremont Police Detective Nolan Woods.

The attacker entered each of their homes through an “unlocked or very weakly locked door,” Woods said. The homes are within two blocks of each other.