Knife-Wielder Believed Tied to Rapes of 17

The same knife-wielding assailant may be responsible for raping as many as 17 young women and girls in the past 18 months as they entered their secured apartment buildings in a six-square-mile section of Los Angeles between Westlake and Hancock Park, police said Tuesday.

The youngest and most recent victim, who was raped Feb. 10 in a building on West 3rd Street, was 8 years old. Most of the victims have been teen-agers attending junior and senior high school, according to a statement released by a police task force assembled to catch the suspect.

The assailant, described as a thin black man between 25 and 35 years old and between 5-feet-8 and 6-feet-1, has typically struck on weekday afternoons, usually between 3 and 6 p.m., the statement said.

The rapist brandishes a knife as his victim enters her secured building and then forces the young woman to an isolated area of the building, where he assaults her, police said.

Police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth acknowledged that two composite drawings of the attacker based on victims’ descriptions differ slightly, but said detectives are convinced that all of the rapes were committed by the same man.

Booth said he could not disclose all the evidence that suggests a single assailant committed the crimes. Police came to that conclusion as early as last November, Booth said, but waited until Tuesday before making a public announcement.

“There are always advantages in not going totally public,” Booth said. “We engage in a continuous weighing of those advantages and disadvantages to reach a decision as to when to go public with a plea for assistance.”

In this case, Booth said, the decision was made after a local television station broadcast information about the investigation that had been distributed in flyers to apartment buildings in the affected neighborhoods.

The crimes began Aug. 16, 1984, with an attack on a 14-year-old girl in a building on Kenmore Avenue. They took place in an area bounded by Santa Monica Boulevard on the north, Van Ness Avenue on the west, 9th Street on the south and Rampart Boulevard on the east, police said. The last assault was Feb. 10.

The two oldest victims were 24 and 21 years old, police said. With the exception of the 8-year-old, the rest were between 10 and 17 years old.

The investigation was assigned last November to the rape section of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division. Last January, the department created a 12-member task force under the direction of the rape section to pursue the attacker.

Booth urged anyone with information about the crimes to contact the Robbery-Homicide Division.