Rapist’s 5th Assault Stuns San Clemente : Crime: A young woman is attacked while alone in her home near San Clemente’s Pier Bowl area. Police, still baffled, beef up their investigation.

A serial rapist who has been stalking young women for the past six months struck again late Tuesday night, sending waves of fear through this beach community and frustrating city and law enforcement officials.

“This is going to create hysteria among the citizens of San Clemente,” said Rick Anderson, president of the Pier Bowl Merchants’ Assn. and owner of the Casa Tropicana bed and breakfast. “It’s going to be so much panic.”

Police Sgt. Richard E. Downing said the latest in the string of sexual attacks occurred at 10 p.m. Tuesday on Avenida Monterey, a winding residential street that leads to the Pier Bowl area.

The rapist apparently broke into a home, then sexually assaulted a young woman who was alone there. Downing declined to disclose specific details surrounding the crime, the fifth such attack attributed to one man.

“We’re backing off on the amount of information that we’re providing,” Downing said.

Police remained baffled by the ongoing rapes and expressed frustration that they have been unable to stop the rapist.

“We don’t have anybody in custody and are continuing our investigation,” Downing said, adding that is is not known if the attacker is a San Clemente resident.

While providing only sketchy information on Tuesday night’s assault, Downing said the rapist’s methods were strikingly similar to those in four previous rapes, which began last October.

“We’re very sure” the attacks are linked, Downing said. “We get more sure all the time, and we don’t want more of them to occur. We are acting very hard and fast to do what we can to get this guy.”

Indeed, detectives worked throughout the night, putting together details that may lead investigators to an arrest. They have also beefed up the number of investigators working on the case.

Although they have been unable to come up with much more than a general physical description of the man they seek, police have gathered enough information to be specific about his mode of operation.

Downing said the rapist appears to have stalked his five victims to learn their habits, and attacked them when it was certain they were alone. He also binds, gags and blindfolds the women before sexually assaulting them.

He has been described as a white male in his 20s, about 6 feet tall, weighing 165 pounds, clean-shaven with wavy, light-brown hair.

In addition to increasing police patrols, the department launched a series of rape workshops at the San Clemente Community Center, the first of which was held Feb. 15. A second one is scheduled for the weekend, Downing said.

It was not known if the woman assaulted Tuesday night attended the workshop.

In the wake of the latest attack, residents and local business owners said they are worried that the attacks will not only create a panic in the city but will also damage the city’s image.

“To have the mud thrown at us now, this kind of press really hurts,” said Anderson of the merchants group.

Anderson said that police and business owners have recently put a damper on vandalism and petty crime near the pier. Now, he laments, residents and tourists may see the semi-isolated South County city in a negative light.

“Our concern (as business people) is that this sort of incident has created a trauma just when we are getting things cleaned up around here,” Anderson said.

Meantime, residents, business owners and employees in the bustling commercial center near the San Clemente Municipal Pier have adjusted their daily habits, learning to walk together and to spot suspicious loiterers.

Some businesses have changed their operating hours, closing before sunset.

“The girls (working night shifts in the Pier Bowl area) are pretty scared around here,” said Shelley Van Dyck, who runs a delicatessen and snack shop across the street from the pier.

Spurred by the fear that a rapist is roaming the streets uncaught, rumors and speculation have been circulating throughout the city about what to look for.

“We have heard that he watches somebody at their place of work, follows them home and when they put their key in the door, he will come up behind them and push them inside,” Van Dyck said.

Actually, the rapist has only accosted one woman outside her door, an Oceanside bartender who was coming home to her Avenida Del Mar apartment at 1:15 a.m. on Feb. 15, Downing said.

The first three rapes occurred in the Broadmoor area, an upscale neighborhood of tract homes overlooking San Clemente High School.

On Feb. 4, a 19-year-old woman was attacked after she turned out her lights to go to bed. In November, a 13-year-old girl was raped in her home. And in October, a 29-year-old retarded woman was kidnaped as she walked along Avenida Pico. She was taken to a Dana Point apartment and raped there.

As police investigators spent much of Wednesday interviewing residents on Avenida Monterey, neighbors talked among themselves, comparing notes.

A 34-year-old woman, who asked not to be identified, said she had been confronted by a man on a bicycle hours before Tuesday’s rape occurred.

She described him as in his 20s, thinly built, wearing “shabby clothes,” with light eyes and light brown hair.

The man rode past her, she said, then turned around and headed back toward her. He stopped at the curb and mumbled something to her before riding away.

“It was a really weird situation,” the woman said as she sat on her front lawn minding her young daughters. “He looked real out of place. Not like somebody from around here.”

Police said they were not ruling out the possibility that the bicyclist was the rapist, but would not comment further on their investigation.

Neighbors along Avenida Monterey, an eclectic street of old, wood-frame houses and stucco apartment buildings, theorized that the attacker had been watching the rape victim for a while.

“She’s hardly ever home,” one nervous man told a detective who walked the street on Wednesday afternoon and interviewed residents. “She spends most of her time at her boyfriend’s house. He had to be watching to find her there.”

Police spokesman Downing said that investigators have not yet developed a psychological profile of the rapist.

But several rape specialists interviewed on Wednesday speculated that the man may be an otherwise mild-mannered person who is acting out internal strife.

“Once he is caught, people may be very shocked by who he is,” said psychiatrist Fred Berlin, director of the sexual disorders clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. “He may be a gentle person in other areas of his life who acts very differently in terms of what arouses him sexually.”

RAPE PREVENTION MEASURES

* If you come home and there are signs that a door has been opened or windows tampered with, do not go inside. Find a phone and call 911.

* Keep doors and windows locked at all times.

Keep outdoor lights on at night.

* Do not open the door unless you know who is on the other side.

Carry a whistle with a loud shriek.

* If someone strange is following you in a car, don’t go into your house. Drive to a safe place--the police station or a service station.

* If you think you are being followed on foot, cross the street or go to well-lighted areas.

Make sure keys are in your hand before you reach your car door.

* If you live alone, don’t advertise the fact: Put initials, not your name, on the door or mailbox, or add an extra name.

* Always check identification of repair people before opening the door, and call their offices if you have any questions. Never admit to strangers that you are alone.

* Check your back seat before you get into your car, and always lock the car doors.

* Maintain your vehicle so it doesn’t break down on the road. If it does, attach white cloth to your antenna. Stay inside your car until a police officer arrives.

* If you feel you are in danger, don’t be reluctant to scream and run; inside a building, scream, “Fire!”

* Project a self-confident image: Stand up straight, walk with confidence and make eye contact with all passers-by.

* Teach your children not to tell anyone where you are when you are not at home, or that they are alone in the house. They should say “my mother can’t come to the phone” without providing an explanation.

Source: Michal Heller, Orange County Sexual Assault Network --Researched by Elena Brunet / Los Angeles Times

24-HOUR RAPE CRISIS HOT LINES

Orange County Sexual Assault Network (714) 831-9110 and (714) 836-7400. Accompaniment to the hospital or police station is offered at all hours.

Sexual Assault Victim Services Hotline (714) 957-2737

Long Beach Rape Hotline (213) 597-2002

Riverside Area Rape Crisis Center (714) 686-7273