Series of Rapes Still Has Simi Police Stumped

It’s been four years since the serial rapist first struck in Simi Valley, and there’s no telling when the attacks may end.

To date, cops believe they have linked the attacker to 11 completed or attempted sexual assaults dating back to June 8, 1996, when he entered an unlocked door of a home near Sycamore Drive and Sequoia Avenue and approached a young woman before being scared off by other people in the house.

The two most recent incidents occurred within a day of each other in March. The victims were both confronted in their homes by a masked, knife-wielding assailant.

One woman was raped, and the other fought off the attacker before he fled.

“It’s obviously frustrating for us because we are putting a tremendous amount of effort into it and have had tremendous cooperation from the community,” said Simi Valley Police Sgt. Bob Gardner. “But it all boils down to the fact that we don’t have that one little piece of information to put us around the corner.”

Since the case started, the list of suspects--based on detective work, tips from residents and a criminal profile done by the FBI--has swelled from about two dozen people to more than 400, Gardner said.

It could take months, even years, Gardner said, to finish investigating each lead. Two detectives, including one full-timer, are working on the case with the help of several state and federal law enforcement agencies who have experts in this area.

Stay tuned for further developments.

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Despite what television shows and the occasionally misinformed cop may say, there is no waiting period required before filing a missing-persons report.

This issue cropped up last week when a Ventura mother waited 36 hours before calling police to report her 5-year-old daughter’s disappearance.

Denise Leary had allowed a neighborhood friend to take her daughter, Jasmine, to the store, as she had done many times before, but the pair failed to return.

A day and a half later, Jasmine was found with 46-year-old Linda Louise Ramirez at a methadone treatment clinic in Oxnard.

The youngster was fine and had not been harmed, and detectives are investigating whether Ramirez suffers from mental troubles. The point is, though, Leary should have called the cops immediately.

“It used to be years ago that for adults you had to wait for 24 hours before [filing a report] because oftentimes they would return,” said Ventura Police Sgt. Jerry Thurston.

In 1989, state law was changed to mandate law enforcement agencies to immediately take a missing-persons report on any person, regardless of age, Thurston said.

But not all cop shops handle such reports in the same way. In cases involving children under 12, officers will immediately begin investigating.

In cases of older children or adults, particularly if the situation appears to be a runaway or a mental health matter, officers will often take a report by telephone, issue an alert to the entire force and respond as soon as possible to the reporting party’s home.

In Ventura, the cops receive from three to five calls a day about a missing person. Most of the cases involve teens who have run away from a group home or had a fight with a parent or caretaker, Thurston said.

“We have very few that don’t eventually show up,” he added.

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Ventura Police Officer Ryan Weeks probably doesn’t feel romantic about the rails.

The rookie cop’s patrol car was demolished recently after he parked too close to the tracks while responding to a disturbance call, and a Union Pacific train tore off the vehicle’s back half.

The $30,000 vehicle was a total loss, but thankfully Weeks was uninjured.

“We chalked it up as a mistake,” said Lt. John Garner.

Weeks had been working the graveyard shift when he responded to a call of several transients partying too hard at “hobo junction,” a longtime homeless encampment off Main Street in the Ventura River bottom.

When Weeks arrived, he quickly parked his car and went to talk to a man walking on the tracks away from the party. Afterward, he and another officer went down to the party and broke it up.

On the way back to the tracks, Weeks had to watch as his black-and-white took the hit. Garner said the train’s engineer braked as hard as he could, but it just wasn’t enough.

Holly J. Wolcott can be reached at 653-7581 or at holly.wolcott@latimes.com.