Suspect in Three USC Rapes Linked to Previous Attack : Crime: A West Covina woman saw photo of suspect in USC assaults and identified him as the man who broke into her home last year.

A man accused of raping three USC students has been linked to another assault on a woman, police said Tuesday.

Willie Damone Taylor, a convicted rapist who is being held without bail on 21 felony counts stemming from the USC rapes, is under investigation for attempted rape in the alleged attack last year of a West Covina woman, officials said.

The woman saw Taylor’s photograph on a television newscast last week and contacted police to report he was the man who broke into her home on Oct. 14, 1989, tied her up and attempted to sexually assault her, West Covina police said.

In that incident, according to investigators, the woman managed to get loose and fight her attacker before he fled.

West Covina and Los Angeles police said they were able to match Taylor’s fingerprints with prints taken from the West Covina crime scene.

“They (West Covina police) ran our suspect’s prints against the lifts they had, and it matched,” Los Angeles Police Detective Dave Barber said.

The West Covina victim, a 40-year-old receptionist, suffered minor injuries in the struggle with her assailant, who fled with her money and jewelry, West Covina Detective Dennis Edwards said.

Edwards said the assailant entered the woman’s home through an open or unlocked sliding back door. She discovered him standing in her kitchen.

The incident occurred during a six-week period when Taylor was on parole from state prison, Barber said.

Taylor, 28, was paroled from prison during the last week of September, 1989, after serving 2 1/2 years of a six-year sentence for the 1985 rape of a Long Beach woman, police said. He was arrested again during the first week of November for prowling and giving false identification to a police officer--parole violations--and sent back to prison, police said.

Taylor was freed again on Sept. 5 of this year, 11 days before the first USC rape.

In his arraignment on Monday, Taylor pleaded not guilty to the USC attacks. Municipal Judge Judith Abrams ordered his bail revoked after prosecutors reported that Taylor had threatened to kill his victims if they went to the police. A preliminary hearing was set for Oct. 15.

Taylor is accused of breaking into a woman’s apartment near the USC campus around dawn on Sept. 16, raping the 20-year-old student who lived there and stealing a small amount of money.

He is also charged in the Sept. 26 rapes of two 20-year-old roommates who lived just north of the campus. Each was tied up while the other was raped.

Deputy District Atty. Andrew J. McMullen, who is prosecuting Taylor for the USC rapes, said he would consider filing additional charges against Taylor for the West Covina attack.