Police Book Suspect in Corona Rape-Robbery

Police said they believe that they have captured the man who raped and robbed a woman at gunpoint last week in her south Corona home.

Detectives Dennis Wensel and Dale Stewart arrested Thomas Gerald Macabe, 22, at his home on Park Way in the city of Lake Elsinore on Tuesday night.

Macabe was booked into Corona City Jail on charges of forcible rape, robbery, vehicle theft, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, possession of stolen property, false imprisonment and possession of a gun by an ex-convict, said Lt. Bob Martin, commander of detectives for the Corona Police Department.

Macabe was held in the city jail on $100,000 bail Wednesday, pending transfer to Riverside County Jail. He has been in and out of state custody since April, 1980, when he was committed for burglary and receiving stolen property, said Arthur L. German, a spokesman for the Youth Authority.

Macabe was most recently paroled in June, German added.

Police linked Macabe to the Corona crime based on items found hidden in his home, Martin said. “We found the gun which we believe was used in the crime and we found what we believe to be the victim’s car keys,” Martin said.

The detectives obtained arrest and search warrants after matching another agency’s photograph of Macabe with a composite sketch of their suspect, Martin said.

That sketch was made from a description of the rapist given to police by the victim last week. She told police that on Nov. 19, a man knocked on her door, asking if she had seen his lost dog, then forced his way inside her home.

The “lost dog” information was familiar to other law enforcement agencies that had reported similar cases of a man seeking entry to people’s homes in the area, Martin said. Using that story, the suspect was “apparently looking for a lone female, and he found one here in Corona,” he said.

The attacker forced his victim into a bedroom, where she was bound and assaulted, then locked in a closet, police said. In the course of the attack, Martin said, the rapist fired his gun twice. “He fired one over her head, and we’re not sure where the other one went.”

The rapist ransacked the house, took about $50 in cash and fled in his victim’s car, a dark gray 1985 Chevrolet Camaro. Riverside County sheriff’s deputies found the car last Friday near a vacant lot in a residential area of Lake Elsinore.