Suspect Arrested in Ritualistic Assaults : Rapes: Assailant told victims he was a ‘messenger of the Lord,’ Long Beach police say. Authorities say he may be involved in other crimes.

A man believed to be the so-called “Messenger of the Lord” rapist, thought to be responsible for ritualistic attacks and rapes of at least four women in Los Angeles County, was arrested Wednesday in his rented room in an exclusive area of Rancho Palos Verdes, police said.

Joseph Brian Socha, 29, was booked for investigation of rape, sodomy, forced oral copulation, kidnaping and assault with a deadly weapon. He was held in lieu of $50,000 bail at the Los Angeles County Jail, where he is under a suicide watch, authorities said.

Three women who were raped between Sept. 16 and Sept. 28 told Long Beach police that their attacker picked them up in his brown Volvo and sexually assaulted them. Two reported that he cutoff their hair with an 8-inch, double-edged knife and carved upside down crosses on their backs before he threw them nude from his car. The third said she escaped before he could cut her.

The victims all entered the man’s car voluntarily, investigators said. Two of the women said they were hitchhiking. The third said she simply accepted a ride from the attacker.

“In all three cases, the suspect identified himself as St. Peter, the messenger of the Lord,” police spokesman Jay Fogg said. “He claimed to present their hair to God in order to cleanse their souls.”

Last weekend, police issued a composite drawing of the clean-cut rapist that was broadcast on television. A woman who said she had been forced at knifepoint into the suspect’s car and raped in July recognized him from the sketch, investigators said.

The woman said she had decided not to report the incident until she saw news reports and recognized her attacker from the drawing. She told police she had seen the man driving around the area since summer, and gave officers his personalized license plate--GIMMIMO.

A woman who described herself as a friend of Socha said he told her the plates meant “Give me more money.”

Investigators said the victim of the July attack called Tuesday with the license number, and they were able to get a copy of Socha’s driver’s license. Two rape victims identified the man in the photo as their attacker, detectives said.

On Tuesday, Long Beach officers surrounded a San Pedro-area address, the one listed on Socha’s driver’s license, only to learn that he had moved a few weeks earlier, detectives said.

Los Angeles Police then checked utility and other records and turned up Socha’s new address on Via Borica in Rancho Palos Verdes, investigators said.

Socha was arrested at 2:30 a.m. in his rented room on a quiet cul-de-sac, police said. Parked outside was his Volvo with tinted windows that make it impossible for anyone outside to see what is happening inside, police said.

Police said they found several stuffed dolls in Socha’s room and recovered an 8-inch, double-edged knife from his car.

Socha’s landlady, Pat Anthony, frequently rents rooms to students at nearby Marymount Palos Verdes College, her son, B.J. Anthony said. Socha told Anthony he attended Cal State Dominguez Hills and was a member of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregation in San Pedro.

Officials at the university said a Joseph Brian Socha, 29, is enrolled in its master’s program in the school of Business Administration.

Sarah Washburn, a 25-year-old office manager who recently moved to Salt Lake City, said she once dated Socha, adding that she is “stunned and scared” by his arrest on rape charges. “It’s so scary thinking of all the times I was alone with him,” she said.

Police in Long Beach and Los Angeles said they were scrutinizing similar attacks for clues to Socha’s possible involvement.

Other people who know the suspect said he worked for an auto parts company in Los Angeles and was a “courteous gentleman,” who opened doors for women.

Socha had rented a room in the Anthony household for about two weeks--”not even long enough to unpack his boxes,” B.J. Anthony said. No religious artifacts were in his room except a copy of the Book of Mormon, he said.

Socha was raised a Roman Catholic and and became a Mormon two years ago, but wore a crucifix around his neck, friends said. Officials at his church in San Pedro said they were puzzled by the reference to St. Peter and his wearing of a cross since neither crosses nor St. Peter are particularly important in Mormonism.

The most recent attack occurred last Friday night on a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach that police said is frequented by prostitutes. Victims said their assailant told them he was sent “to redeem the women and send them back to the Lord.”

Acknowledged prostitutes interviewed this week along a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach near the Los Angeles River said they saw the police drawing of the suspect on television and recognized him as a customer they knew as “Machete Man,” because of the knife he carried.

Several of the women said that they had even “dated” the man in the composite, and that he had assaulted some of them.

The prostitutes, who would not give their names, said they told police the man had become progressively violent in the last few weeks. Several of them said they had begun carrying weapons and had rejected his offers of rides.

Another woman said that the composite of the suspect looked like a man who had pulled a knife and raped her.

“He was like my American dream,” the woman said Wednesday. “He looked like Christopher Reeve, and he was very smart. He had a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality.”