Police warn of Fairmount Park rapist

June 5, 2008 With a very warm weekend approaching, local parks are bound to be busy with people enjoying the summerlike weather. Philadelphia police have an urgent warning to everyone that the man known as the Fairmount Park rapist is still on the loose.

Recently, police released new computerized images of the suspect. He targets young women jogging or walking alone in city parks, specifically Fairmount Park and Pennypack Park.

On July 13, 2003, the attacker raped and strangled 30-year-old Rebecca Park, a fourth-year medical student at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. She was jogging alone on a path near Conshohocken Avenue.

The man was linked by DNA to an earlier rape of a young woman along Kelly Drive. She was jogging alone late at night. Then later that same year, he attacked a woman jogging along Martin Luther King Drive, not far from where Rebecca Park was found dead.

He disappeared for four years, and then he attacked again on April 11, 2007. His DNA was linked to the rape of a 29-year-old woman in Pennypack Park in Northeast Philadelphia.

The suspect is described as a hispanic male with a heavy accent. In the last attack, he was wearing a matching mesh basketball-type uniform, blue in color with white piping. Additionally, the victim recalls that he was wearing a gold rope chain with a cross. He may have distinctive scars or markings on the upper left portion of his chest, shoulder and arm.

In every attack, the victims were jogging or walking alone. Police urge everyone to keep an eye out for this suspect. They would also like to hear from anyone who may have visited Pennypack Park on August 11, 2007. They are looking for video and photos that may show the suspect in the park that day.