April 14-20, 2005

city beat

Eluding Arrest?

A half-dozen people tell police they may have seen the Fairmount Park rapist in Society Hill.

by Doron Taussig

On Monday, March 28, a social worker was turning off of Lombard Street onto Third when she came face-to-face with a man she thought she recognized.

"As soon as I saw him, I knew I was looking at the Fairmount Park rapist/murderer," the woman, who asked that her identity be withheld, wrote in an e-mail to the Queen Village Neighbors Association mailing list. Just nine days prior, she had seen a sketch of the suspect — wanted for raping one woman, raping and killing another, and stabbing and attempting to rape a third, all on the trails of Fairmount Park — on America's Most Wanted. One victim has said that the sketch is very accurate, and the social worker believed the man strongly resembled it.

Some of her neighbors have had the same experience. There have been six reported sightings in the Society Hill/Queen Village area of the city over the past several weeks, according to Michael Erdos, an assistant district attorney who serves as president of Society Hill Town Watch.

Speaking in his Town Watch capacity, Erdos says, "There's a buzz forming now because of the recent complaints. Word gets around pretty quick in our neighborhood. There's a buzz, certainly not a panic. ... Some of the people really believe he fits the description to a tee, including the face."

Police Cpl. Jim Pauley says tips continue to come in from across the city. "We take every call very seriously" by sending out homicide and special victims unit detectives, he says, but "there's been no break."

The man whom the social worker saw was riding a purple bike that was too small for him, as the Fairmount Park rapist is said to do. She recalls that as he rode past her down Third Street (against traffic), he looked back over his shoulder twice. Other sightings have occurred near the Old Pine cemetery and on Spruce Street. On April 1, the social worker's roommate reported seeing a man who resembled the sketch at the intersection, once again riding a purple bicycle the wrong way down a one-way street. The most recent sighting, Erdos says, occurred around April 4 or April 5.

Would the Fairmount Park rapist sill have the same purple bike after all the publicity? "Whether he still has it or not would be anybody's guess," says Pauley, "but it's part of the description we're giving out to the public."

"Even if it isn't this guy," asks the social worker, "Why hasn't someone found him yet and talked to him and made sure it's not him?"