Local News in Brief : Cowan Heights : Officers Try to Learn if 2 Rapes Are Linked

Sheriff’s deputies are investigating whether the same male intruder is responsible for two daytime rape attacks in the fashionable hillside community of Cowan Heights, a spokesman said Thursday.

“Our investigators are looking at certain similarities between the two incidents,” Sheriff’s Lt. Richard J. Olson said.

Both attacks occurred during the day, when the victims were alone. In one incident, the woman answered the doorbell and the intruder attacked her after forcing his way into the home, Olson said.

Olson said the suspect in one attack was described as about 25 years old, 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds. The man is believed to look Samoan, Olson said, adding or “at least he has Asian” features.

In the first attack, which occurred Jan. 15 about 10:50 a.m., a teen-age girl was confronted in the laundry room of her Hunting Horn Drive home by a man with a knife.

She was forced into the home where she was raped, Olson said.

On Feb. 17, a teen-ager answered the doorbell about 3 p.m. at her residence on La Sierra Place, less than a mile from the first attack.

The victim became suspicious after the stranger asked whether she was interested in a pool-cleaning service. She attempted to close the door, but the man forced his way in, Olson said. No weapon was used in this attack, he said.

The man in the second attack was described as having a heavy build, straight black hair, dark complexion and a round face, Olson said.