Police still searching for sexual assault suspect | ABC11 Raleigh-Durham

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By ABC11

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

FAYETTEVILLE The latest attack happened Thursday while a woman says she was sleeping in the Tamarack on the Lake Apartments off Pine Lake Drive.

The victim tells ABC11 Eyewitness News she was attacked around 5:30 a.m. inside her apartment. On Monday, she moved out.

The woman who lives across from the victim's apartment, Jennifer Jackson, says on the morning of the attack, the victim saw a light on and thought her husband had returned home early from work.

"She shut her bedroom door and said, 'Babe,' and as soon as she laid back in her bed is whenever he jumped on her. And he threw the blankets over her head and she never saw his face, but she did see his hands," Jackson said.

The victim told ABC11 that she had the window to her apartment open and apparently that's how the suspect got into the room.

"She screamed one time and he got up and he shut the bedroom window and he kept telling her, "I'm not going to rape you ... I'm not going to rape you," but he did sexually assault her," Devona Jackson said.

After her attacker got away, she said she went to her neighbor's apartment.

Police say covering the victim's face is one of the similarities that may tie the case to a string of unsolved rapes and sexual assaults that have plagued the city for months.

"You know, as far as apartment complexes go, of course there's the part of being early in the morning sometime between after midnight, 6 a.m. ... some time in that time frame. That's part of the MO," Fayetteville Police Spokesman Dan Grubb said.

While there are similarities, police still aren't sure if the most recent assault is connected to the others.

"I makes me nervous," Devona Jackson said. "It really, really does because we didn't hear anything. So, the fact that that happened without us even knowing about it, and he was able to get away like that scares me. We have a gun in the house and I make sure I have it loaded and near me instead of put up and the bullet somewhere else. I'm like... that's not going to do me any good if somebody breaks in."

In the meantime, police are reminding residents to not leave windows and doors unlocked.