REGIONAL REPORT : Serial Rapes Focus Attention on Assaults : Crime: Experts disagree on whether the increased multiple attacks are anything more than a statistical coincidence. But more cases are being reported, along with a growing level of violence.

While four serial rapists have been suspected in the past month of committing at least 20 rapes in Los Angeles County, investigators and counselors are divided about whether these serial attacks should be attributed to an alarming new trend or to a mere statistical coincidence.

What is certain is that the cases, which brought fear to neighborhoods from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles, have focused attention on a crime that apparently is becoming more common in Southern California and, in its execution, more violent.

State figures show that rape was up 7.6% in California during the first half of the year, and up 6.3% in selected portions of Southern California, even before the widely publicized cases. The numbers reflect a reversal of a downward trend of nearly a decade.

Two of the four serial cases have resulted in arrests: Willie Damone Taylor, 28, of South-Central Los Angeles was charged last week with raping three USC students, and Joseph Brian Socha, 29, of Rancho Palos Verdes was charged days later in connection with separate attacks on four women in Long Beach and San Pedro. Two of the Long Beach victims told police their hair was cut off with a knife and inverted crosses were carved on their backs.

Meanwhile, manhunts are under way for two other suspected serial rapists, one in Hollywood and West Los Angeles and the other in Santa Monica. The Los Angeles rapist is believed to be responsible for nine attacks over a five-month span, all against elderly women, police said. One victim was 88 years old.

The Santa Monica attacker--who poses as a window washer or gas company repairman--is believed to have committed three sexual assaults in a single night this month and may be responsible for as many as 10 previous rapes, police said.

Whether the spate of serial crimes means that more rapists are assaulting more than one victim is a matter of disagreement among experts in Southern California. Some police investigators say the four recent cases may reflect coincidence and an unusual amount of media attention. Others, however, argue that serial rapes are becoming more common, reflecting the general rise in street crime, homelessness and gang violence.

“In my opinion, there seem to be more (serial rapists),” said Detective Frank Stastny, a sexual assault investigator for the Santa Ana Police Department. In Santa Ana, six serial rapists have been accused of at least 25 rapes in the last two years--a substantial number in a city that investigates 70 or 75 reported rapes a year.

“It just seems more frequent now (to find) repeat offenders,” Stastny said.

But another Santa Ana investigator, Lt. Robert Sayne, said, “They’ve always been around. I haven’t observed an increase.”

Crisis-center workers say the trends are difficult to gauge because as many as 90% of all rapes go unreported, according to some studies. The classic serial rapist--the man who adheres to a particular style of attack and preys upon a defined segment of the population--is thought to be rare, said Julie Dodge, executive director of the Rape Hotline of Long Beach.

However, she said, 80% to 90% of all rapists are believed to repeat their crimes--sometimes again and again and again. “You get some rapists who may strike 30 times before being arrested,” Dodge said.

“This is a very compulsive behavior and I don’t think there are many rapists who just commit one,” added Gail Abarbanel,director of the Rape Treatment Center of Santa Monica. The overall rise in reported rapes has been seen in most large Southern California cities except Los Angeles, Anaheim, Santa Ana and Torrance. In Los Angeles, the 976 rapes reported in the first six months of 1990 represented a 2.8% drop from the totals for the same period last year. However, other cities recorded significant increases--among them, Long Beach, San Diego, Oceanside, Huntington Beach, Inglewood and Pasadena, according to the state Bureau of Criminal Statistics.

The numbers are not the only cause for concern. According to some social workers, there has been a worsening in the manner of the attacks, which are being committed with more brutality.

“We are seeing more cruelty and violence inflicted on (rape) victims,” said Abarbanel.

Lenore Patalano, a counselor at the Rape Hotline of Long Beach, recalls cases this year--such as the kidnaping and rape of a 14-year-old girl on her way to school--of a type that did not occur, or occurred only rarely, in the past. “The violence . . . toward women is just increasing,” she said.

There are no statistics to document that perception, however. Detective Steven Laird of the Los Angeles Police Department’s rape investigation unit said it is possible that the crimes are provoking more outrage now, or that victims are more willing to come forward.

Laird said police this year are disturbed because they have noticed more rapes involving multiple assailants. He attributed the trend in part to escalating gang violence.

Reported rapes in Los Angeles have declined over the last decade--from more than 2,800 in 1980 to fewer than 2,000 a year now, according to LAPD statistics. But the numbers can be deceptive, skeptics say.

Some police officers present the figures as evidence of progress wrought by stronger victims’ rights laws in California. According to Laird, rapists now get longer prison sentences--80 or 100 years in some cases involving repeat offenders convicted on multiple counts. Those criminals are now off the streets--they must serve at least half their sentences before becoming eligible for parole--and unable to prey on the public, Laird said.

Critics argue, however, that increasing numbers of rapes are simply going unreported because of the ineffective and dehumanizing nature of the legal system. One Los Angeles Police Department detective who asked not to be identified said the number of arrests resulting from reports of rape is small--running only about 20% in cases reported to the department so far this year, he said.

During one recent period, the detective said, 50 reports of rape or attempted rape were logged at one LAPD division. Only 14 suspects were arrested, he said, and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office chose to file charges in just one instance. “Fifty rapes, only one filing,” the detective commented. “There’s something wrong with that system.”

Bruce Campbell, head of the district attorney’s sex crimes/child abuse unit, disputed the numbers, saying that in a more typical period the office filed charges in about a third of the cases presented for possible prosecution. In most of those cases, convictions were obtained, he added.

Even so, some social workers see a discrepancy between the LAPD’s declining numbers and the frequency of calls to rape hot lines.

“I don’t ever remember a (period) like this . . . where there’s so much panic among women,” said Patricia Giggans, executive director of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, a private, nonprofit group. “We get about 300 calls per month regarding rape. We used to get 100.”

Fears are heightened by publicity over serial rape cases and worries about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Although social workers said they were unaware of any cases in which women contracted AIDS from an attacker, victims face the agonizing process of being tested for the virus.

Rapes on college campuses also seem to be increasing, Abarbanel said. At UCLA earlier this year, the issue was widely debated after the Daily Bruin published an anonymous letter from a student who described how she was given spiked punch at a fraternity dance party until she was so ill she had to lie down--and was raped by two men.

The account drew several letters from male students who blamed fraternities for emphasizing alcohol and sexual conquests.

“Freshman girls, especially new sorority pledges, are conspicuous targets at parties,” one fraternity member wrote, also anonymously. “I’ve heard many guys specifically say to make sure the sorority pledges get plenty to drink because they are easy ‘prey’ ”

The victims of rape fit no particular pattern. Some recover from the trauma of the assault in six months; others suffer for years with flashbacks, nightmares, compulsive showering, fear of men. Dodge recalled a woman who broke down in tears remembering a day she was raped.

The woman was 70, Dodge said. She had been raped at age 15.

Times staff writers Andrea Ford, Shawn Hubler, Charisse Jones, Jesse Katz, Matt Lait and Carol Watson contributed to this story.