A serial sex predator is believed to be targeting women in Philadelphia‘s tony Rittenhouse Square after a string of alarming similar assaults there.
At least five women have been sexually assaulted in or around the posh leafy neighborhood since July, with victims attacked right outside their homes, walking their dogs in the morning — and even in broad afternoon daylight, according the Philadelphia Police Department’s Special Victims Unit.
The area is not only the heart of Philadelphia’s high-end shopping and dining district but has some of its most expensive and sought after homes and is a tourism thoroughfare.
A single suspect — a man between 5’11” and 6″ and with long braided hair worn sometimes in a ponytail — is wanted in the attacks, which generally involve him approaching his victims from behind before pouncing, Fox 29 reported.
The first incident happened July 18 at 6:40 a.m. on Spruce Street, with a woman who was walking her dog being attacked and sexually assaulted.
The next day, at 3:13 a.m., a woman was entering her apartment building and similarly attacked and sexually assaulted.
Reports connected to the suspect went quiet after that — till he apparently struck again Aug. 2 when he grabbed a woman from behind on Waverly Street at 8:15 a.m. and sexually assaulted her.
The next day, Aug. 3, at 1 a.m. he did the same to a woman who was walking to her car on South 15th Street.
The same day, he later approached a woman from behind on Webster Street at 12:30 p.m. as she was unlocking her front door and sexually assaulted her.
The exact nature of his assaults remain unclear, but sexual assault in Pennsylvania is characterized as any kind of forcible sexual intercourse.
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