Serial Rape Suspect Held After DNA Match Is Made

Alert police officers who stopped a suspicious man driving to work and persuaded him to provide an oral swab may have stopped a serial rapist who sexually assaulted four women in Westchester, authorities said Thursday.

Jerome Green, 38, was linked through DNA to one victim, police alleged. Green has pleaded not guilty, and is being held in lieu of $11 million bail.

“This was a case of some very good police work on the part of patrol officers and the detectives,” said LAPD Capt. Al Michelena, head of the Robbery-Homicide Division.

The rapist entered homes through unlocked windows and forced victims to submit by threatening their children.

The man was dubbed the “Westchester stalker” as a result of the string of sexual assaults that began Aug. 14. According to investigators, the man would prowl the area at night, searching for victims, learning their movements and then targeting those with young children. The man struck again Aug. 30, Sept. 7 and Oct. 1, prosecutors said.

But in late September, authorities said, a man was seen looking into a bathroom window in the 8800 block of Ramsgate Avenue.

The man, witnesses told police, fled in a blue Saab.

In the same neighborhood on Oct. 10 about 3 a.m., two patrol officers saw a blue Saab and pulled over the driver, who was Green.

The detectives working on the rape cases, Jessie Alvarado and Susan Antennucci, went to the scene and questioned Green. Green showed that he was going to work.

But before letting him go, detectives persuaded Green to provide an oral swab, Michelena said

The DNA from that swab matched some left by the rapist during one of his crimes, Michelena said. Detectives and officers arrested Green on Oct. 23.