Simi Attack May Be Linked to Serial Rapist

Authorities are investigating whether a 20-year-old woman who was kidnapped and sexually assaulted here last weekend was the victim of a serial rapist who has attacked eight local women in the last three years, according to police.

“It seems like everybody is connecting them because this type of incident is rare in this city, and all the attacks are on young females in the later hours of the evening,” Lt. Neal Rein said.

Sunday’s crime occurred as the young woman stepped out of her car in her driveway at about 1 a.m., police said. The attacker forced her into the passenger seat and drove to an unidentified location, where he assaulted her.

Of the five sexual assaults and three rapes between June 1996 and May of this year, genetic material from at least three of the incidents matched, according to Sgt. Andrew McCluskey.

Authorities believe that the attacker stalks his victims. All of them have been between 15 and 23 years old, thin and had light brown hair. No physical details were released about the latest victim.

None of the victims have been able to provide a detailed description of the man. Most of them were awakened at night by a man with a knife. They have described him as probably in his early 20s and white or possibly Latino.

According to police reports, last weekend’s attacker was in his 20s, 6 feet tall and 180 pounds.

Authorities had been investigating a possible link with a serial rapist who had struck at least five times in the western San Fernando Valley since March 29 of this year. Rein said that connection was no longer considered a possibility.