Winter Park Rapist Struck First In Connecticut
DNA Evidence Links Unsolved Rapes in Connecticut and Florida to the Same Unidentified Suspect
By Shawn R. Dagle
In Winter Park Florida an 86-year-old woman is on her bed reading the Bible in her apartment when she notices a strange man inside her home.
The man begins to speak to her in Spanish and while the woman has a hard time understanding what the man is saying she can tell he is asking questions about a lost dog.
Confusion turns to fright as the man pushes the elderly woman onto her bed, physically retrains her and sexually assaults her for approximately 15 minutes before stealing her purse and fleeing her apartment.
When police run DNA evidence from the crime through a database they get a hit. This is not the man’s first assault. The Winter Park rapist was involved in the similar attack of an older woman more than 1,000 miles north in Connecticut. 15 years later neither crime has been solved and the perpetrator still remains at large.
While it is uncertain how many rapes or other assaults the Winter Park rapist may be responsible for, his first known crime occurred in the Summer of 2004 in Connecticut.
That August a 62-year-old woman was walking on a bicycle path near Wethersfield High School’s football field when she was grabbed from behind.
The man – described later as an Hispanic male, five feet six inches tall, weighing between 145 and 165 pounds, with bronze colored skin, almond shaped eyes and very dark, thick hair - told the woman to stop screaming or he would kill her. He also claimed he had a knife. According to the victim the man spoke fluent English with a Spanish accent.
“The attacker pushed the victim off the path to the west, covering her face with a red sweatshirt and telling her not to look at him or he would kill her,” according to Connecticut State Police.
The rapist told the victim he knew where she lived and stated he was familiar with the woods.
After she was sexually assaulted the rapist tied the woman’s hands “loosely” behind her back and told her to lay there until she heard him whistle and leave.
Once he was gone the woman struggled to remove her bindings. After 15 minutes of trying she was able to free herself and run for help.
Despite their best efforts to solve the rape no arrests were made by police. Three years passed and it seemed like the crime was destined to become another unsolved, cold case. Then in the autumn of 2007 – far north along the eastern seaboard – the rapist struck again.
On October 30 of that year a Hispanic man, in his twenties, wearing a blue shirt and pants and dark colored hat entered an 86-year-old woman’s apartment in Winter Park, Florida through an unlocked sliding glass door off a rear patio. Investigators believe the man had spotted the elderly woman through her bedroom window as she read her Bible on her bed.
It was a Tuesday and just after 1 p.m. at the Village Lane Apartments when the rapist entered. He spoke in Spanish and was asking about a lost dog when he walked into the woman’s room. She was then “brutally attacked” and sexually assaulted on her bed according to reports.
The victim in Florida described her attacker as being about five feet eight inches tall, dark complected, with a stocky build, dark hair, dark clothes and a dark hat. He was also clean shaven.
As in the Connecticut case DNA evidence was obtained by investigators.
Florida police entered their DNA profile into a database and got a hit. The rape in Connecticut and Florida were committed by the same man. Who that man is however remains a mystery yet to be solved.
-February 5, 2023
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Sources
CT State Police Cold Case Page
The Orlando Sentinel “Extra Reward Offered Rape in Home” November 1, 2007
Fox 35 Orlando “Search for Serial Rapist” Ray Villeda March 17, 2022