On the Trails of Serial Rapists

In Torrance, he’s brazen. He hasn’t physically struck his victims, according to police, but he’s audacious enough to attack in daylight. In Long Beach, he’s methodical. He seems to have researched his victims, knowing they are alone and preying on them only then. And in Hancock Park, he was so obvious, or careless, he got caught--allegedly.

Perhaps the strongest commonality among the three serial rapists is that they are terrorizing the Los Angeles area this summer. Most law enforcement officials say the number of serial rapists has not increased, but there’s been more media attention.

Last week, Long Beach police added more people to their rape task force because it was inundated with calls a day after Cmdr. Linda Beardslee, who heads the task force, held a news conference describing the assailant’s method and exhorting the public to be observant. The Long Beach rapist’s attacks go back to 1996; the most recent attempt was last Thursday, according to Long Beach police.

Sean Tanabe, the lead detective on the case of the Torrance rapist who is suspected of attacking three women from July 4 to July 29, said this is the first serial rapist he’s encountered in the three years he’s worked on sex crimes in the city.

“That’s not to say these acts haven’t been committed,” he said. (It’s unclear whether the same criminal is responsible for an attempted rape July 22 in the area.)

Rape is notoriously underreported, said Gail Abarbanel, director of the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center.

“All rapists are serial rapists, and they’re very big recidivist offenders,” said Abarbanel, who was trained and worked as a social worker before becoming involved in the treatment of rape victims. “They usually commit far more rapes than they get arrested for or convicted for.”

Although the rapes that have been getting public attention the last few months appear to be cases in which the rapist is a stranger, most rapes, Abarbanel said, are committed by people the victim knows--a friend, neighbor, colleague, fellow student, someone met at a party or club.

“You’re more likely to report a stranger rape than an acquaintance rape to authorities,” Abarbanel said, adding that victims of a rapist they know often fear retaliation from the person or blame from the community.

“Acquaintance rape is just as criminal, just as devastating to the victim as stranger rape. The penal code doesn’t distinguish between stranger rape and acquaintance rape.”

Abarbanel doesn’t subscribe to the theory that there are more rapes in the summer because people leave doors and windows open. Los Angeles is temperate year round, she notes.

Moses Castillo, a Los Angeles police detective in the special rape section of the Robbery-Homicide Division, said people should always be on alert, not just this summer. Many criminals progress from thieves to rapists, Castillo said.

“Every three seconds, someone’s house is being burglarized, so the chances of someone being sexually assaulted are high,” Castillo said.

But rapes occur in a wide variety of places, Abarbanel said. “If I told you where every rape happened, you wouldn’t go anywhere,” she said. “It happens everywhere.”

In fact, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday announced that DNA evidence now has linked attacks on five girls in southeast Los Angeles County to one man.

That spree began a year ago, and the last two attacks were in February, Deputy Brian Lendman said. The attacker has struck once in North Long Beach and four times in Paramount. He’s described as pudgy and has been spotted in a white compact sedan and on a BMX bicycle.

And on Tuesday, sheriff’s investigators arrested a Thousand Oaks tile setter they suspect is a serial rapist on suspicion of three sexual assaults in the city during the past four years.

Narcisso Solis, 40, was about to be released after spending the weekend behind bars on a drunk driving arrest when DNA tests allegedly linked him to the assaults. Authorities suspect he also is responsible for at least two other unsolved rape cases in Thousand Oaks, and they’ve notified other law enforcement agencies in Ventura and Los Angeles counties about his arrest and possible link to more cases.

According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, there were 90,186 forcible rapes reported in 2000 (the most recent year for final statistics).

“I see about 1,000 cases myself” each year, said Abarbanel, who contends that the FBI figure is substantially lower than the reality because so many victims do not tell the authorities.

The Types of Rapists

Whether rapists are strangers or acquaintances of their victims, most fall roughly into four profiles: the power-reassurance rapist, the power-assertive rapist, the anger-retaliation rapist and the anger-excitation rapist, or sadist. Two other categories account for a very small number of rapists: opportunistic rapists and gang rapists.

The typology, developed by the FBI and often used by law enforcement, is based on the seminal 1970s research of psychologist A. Nicholas Groth, author of “Men Who Rape: The Psychology of the Offender.”

Criminal profilers warn against using the typology rigidly. “These are simply starting points,” said Roy Hazelwood, a former supervisory special agent in the behavioral science unit at the FBI Academy who researched rapists and was instrumental in developing the typology.

The power-reassurance rapist attacks “to reassure himself of his own masculinity,” said Hazelwood, who has written about sexually violent criminals and still does behavioral research. “He is the least violent of all rapists, but he’s also the most cautious. He selects his victims through window peeping and/or surveillance.”

Castillo said of these types of rapists, “They like a surprise approach. They like victims to be alone or with small children. They use minimum force to get control. If they get any resistance, they will generally negotiate--’Just take it easy, if you do what I say, you won’t be harmed’--or threaten--’Look, I have a gun.’ ”

The FBI’s profiles also reveal that they are often single or experiencing difficulty in a relationship, possibly living alone or with their parents. Often their mothers have been domineering.

The power-assertive rapist, on the other hand, is using rape to express his virility, dominance and superiority. If resisted, the power-assertive rapist will slap or curse. He usually tears off his victim’s clothes. “He might have a preconceived idea that there are wrongs in his life and this is his time to get even,” Castillo said.

They generally attack away from their own neighborhoods, in the evenings from around 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., sometimes prowling bars for victims.

“They could convince someone to come home with them,” Castillo said. “It might be on a second or third date. These cases are difficult to prosecute because a lot of times the victim won’t report it, thinking, ‘Well, I asked for it.’ ”

The anger-retaliation rapist “is getting even with women for real or imagined wrongs,” Hazelwood said. “He just doesn’t like women and he makes no attempt to conceal that fact.”

Violent and impulsive, he can end up killing a victim or injuring her so badly she needs hospitalization. “There’s no pattern to his assaults, which makes it difficult to catch him.”

Enjoys Causing Pain

The sadistic rapist wants to inflict emotional and physical pain and is aroused by his victim’s suffering. “He’s the predator of all predators when it comes to rapists,” Hazelwood said. “He’s the most meticulous.” He may carry supplies--gloves, tape, rope--and have a location for his crime selected. According to Castillo, the FBI classification guide categorizes the sadist as usually in his 30s, middle-class and often college-educated.

The least frequently encountered types are the opportunistic rapist--for example, a burglar in a home who finds a woman there and suddenly decides to rape her--and the gang rapists, a group of three or more males who assault for each other’s approval, according to Hazelwood.

A rapist is often caught after he makes mistakes, gets spotted or brags about his crimes. Sometimes, his downfall comes when a victim doesn’t react as he expected. “I have one guy where the victim was 90 years old,” Castillo said. “She had a Medic-Alert around her neck, she activated that, the paramedics came and chased him and caught him.”

Hazelwood said it would be “close to impossible” to boil down into a few tips how to confront a rapist based on type. The victim might have only seconds to assess not only the rapist’s type but also the location and her own strengths and weaknesses.

He does offer basic safety precautions: “If it doesn’t look right or feel right, don’t do it. Don’t go home with strangers. Lock your windows and doors.” Hazelwood notes that securing your home may discourage a power-reassurance rapist. “He’s got a fantasy of a sexual relationship,” Hazelwood said. “If he has to break a window or use a crowbar, that increases the possibility she’s alerted and will resist, and that breaks his fantasy.”

The rapist lurking in Hancock Park and Hollywood often knocked on doors and struck up conversation to gain admittance to houses. Or he sneaked into homes.

The suspect in those assaults, Gary David Johnson, was arrested last Thursday after a sharp-eyed volunteer for a nonprofit Jewish medical emergency group noticed a suspicious man talking on an intercom outside a residence in the Fairfax district. The volunteer, in his car, trailed the man and phoned two other volunteers who picked up the surveillance, watching the man walk around, order ice cream at a mini-mall and ring another doorbell. After consulting the police flier describing the Hancock Park rapist, the volunteers called the police on a cell phone.

The Long Beach rapist has frustrated police there for half a decade. Police can trace his crimes back to 1996 in Seattle. His first reported attack in Long Beach was in January 1997. Police know that over the last six years, he has raped 11 times, choosing victims ranging in age from 32 to 80. Most of those crimes were committed in the Long Beach area but others were in Los Alamitos and Huntington Beach. Two of those rapes occurred this year, in May and August.

Police contend he has also tried unsuccessfully to rape three women this year. Two of his attempts came barely more than 24 hours apart--late on Aug. 13 and early in the morning Aug. 15.

“Assuming this is the same guy that we’re connecting to the 11, it’s very unique that the same person might strike twice in 24 hours,” said Long Beach Police Sgt. Paul LeBaron. “Due to the fact that that hasn’t happened in the past [with this criminal], that concerns us.”

Since the rapist usually strikes during darkness and either covers his own face or that of his victims, no one knows his ethnic background, much less the details of what he looks like.

“You seem to have a person who’s doing his research,” LeBaron said. “And it makes it difficult to find him.” Two years ago, amid much publicity, Long Beach police arrested a man on suspicion of the rapes attributed to the Long Beach rapist but eventually cleared him of those assaults through DNA evidence.

Last Thursday morning, when the serial rapist is believed to have attacked again in Long Beach, his face was covered but he was nude and his would-be victim scratched his chest and possibly his face and arms.

Detectives on the task force searching for the rapist declined to comment for this story, but last Thursday, Beardslee, the head of the task force, held a news conference urging people to scrutinize every man they know for fresh scratches.

“Someone has been in contact with him,” LeBaron said. “If anybody sees a person who has scratch marks, who has changed his normal routine, they should consider that suspicious and notify the police.”

Attacking in Daylight

The rapist operating in Torrance is a black man whose age has been described as anywhere from early 20s to late 30s. He has attacked in broad daylight, forcing his victims, with a gun, into a silver-colored car. He has yet to strike any of his victims.

“All the assaults have occurred within the vehicle,” said Sean Tanabe, the lead detective on the case.

Torrance police are still awaiting final results of the rape examinations done on the victims.

“We’re hoping to find some DNA. But nothing has been completed,” Tanabe said. “And without a vehicle license plate, that makes it harder to solve cases like this.

“But they can be solved. It takes a lot of help from the public--and they’ve been doing a tremendous job. We’ve received 600, 700 calls from people who think they saw the car or the guy.”

People with information about the Torrance rapist can call police at (310) 328-3456 or (310) 618-5586. To report information regarding the Long Beach rapist, the hotline number is (866) 600-1110.