Latest Attack Is Not Believed Tied to ‘Valley Intruder’

The rape of an 84-year-old San Gabriel woman early Sunday may not have been the work of a late-night intruder being sought by a police task force in a countywide series of slayings and assaults, authorities believe.

Despite initial speculation that the intruder had struck again, there were few similarities between Sunday’s incident and earlier attacks in which people have been shot, stabbed, raped and bludgeoned in their homes, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block said Monday.

The elderly woman’s description of her assailant, as well as methods the attacker used, “lead us to believe that it may not, and probably is not, related” to the six or more murders and as many as 13 other non-fatal assaults linked to one person, the sheriff said.

Many of the incidents--dating back to February--have taken place in the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys, leading Block to suggest Monday that the man they are seeking be dubbed the “Valley Intruder.” Others in the media searching for an appropriate moniker have labeled the wanted man the “Valley Invader,” “Walk-in Killer” and “Night Stalker.”

Whatever his label, the assailant gains entry through open windows and unlocked doors to attack sleeping victims. Nearly all of the residences where attacks have occurred were poorly lighted and unfenced.

Investigators from the Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles, Arcadia, Glendale, Monrovia and Monterey Park police departments are participating in a manhunt that Block described as “far more complex” than that mounted in the Hillside Strangler murders of the late 1970s. Block said the six-agency task force is “growing every day” and probably now numbers more than 50 detectives.

The case thus far has baffled investigators, who invariably depend on a killer’s modus operandi-- a consistent pattern of behavior--to discover clues and make arrests. The pattern often involves a killer’s preference for a particular type of weapon or victim.

“That’s why this case is so mind-boggling,” Block said. “There’s no consistency at all.”

Even in those cases where victims have been shot, a different gun apparently has been used, the sheriff noted.

The essential links between each episode have been the assailant’s method of entry and the physical description offered by survivors and witnesses. The intruder has been described and depicted in a composite drawing as a thin man between 6 feet and 6 feet 2 inches tall and between 25 and 30 years of age. He has discolored front teeth that are widely gapped and curly brown hair.

In Sunday’s incident, the elderly woman was attacked at about 5:30 a.m. in her one-story house. She did not get a good look at her assailant because he was wearing a mask, Block said. However, she described the man as considerably shorter than the individual wanted in the other crimes, he said.

The woman’s description of his height--and the fact that the attacker did not exhibit a weapon, wore a mask and did not beat her--led investigators to discount the possibility that the crime was committed by the same person being sought by the task force, Block said.