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Composite Sketch

08-12-2005, 04:48 PM

This case affects me like the Baskin children case affected dynoguy. I really have been tempted lately to write to the Norwood Police Department and ask about this one. The devastation of the clothing store victims really pulls on the heart strings.

In terms of articles, I've found precious little about it. Pretty much just the few Boston Globe articles below from when the crimes were ongoing. Absolutely nothing after the UM segment, and nothing about UM showing the case either.

Interesting to note that the clinic attack was the rapist's second hit, not the first, and the article does not mention that it was a clinic, just a "store". Also, and this is venturing into dangerous territory so feel free to shut me up on the subject, but some attacks were described as "rapes" and others as "sexual assaults", while on the UM segment they were all classified as rapes.

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6 POLICE FORCES JOIN HUNT FOR ROBBER-RAPIST
Author(s): Tom Coakley, Globe Staff Date: January 17, 1990 Page: 17 Section: METRO
NORWOOD -- Police detectives from Boston and five area towns are looking into whether the same man has committed three rapes and two sexual assaults while robbing stores in their communities since Dec. 16.
Investigators from at least five of the communities will meet here today to compare reports, composite sketches, descriptions and other details of the crimes, which occurred in Boston, Braintree, Framingham, Dedham, Saugus and Norwood. The attacks include the daylight rape of two employees of a Framingham clothing store Dec. 27 and the rape of a telephone store employee on Route 1 here last Friday.
"There's obvious similarities," said Paul Bishop, Norwood police spokesman.
"It does show us a similar pattern as to the suspect in Norwood and the others," said Boston police spokesman Scott Gillis.
Bishop and spokesmen from the other departments said descriptions by several victims are similar.
A composite of descriptions indicates that the attacker is a white man, between 5 feet 7 and 6 feet tall, heavy set (weighing 200 pounds or more), in his mid-30s, with either reddish brown or black hair.
The attacker always acted alone and almost always carried a revolver. He struck stores in heavily traveled areas.
In several cases he ordered store employees into a back room or tied them up. In at least three cases, the suspect referred to a friend or accomplice outside who would hurt the victims further if they left the store too soon after the crime.
"He fits the bill," said Bishop.
In four of the crimes women were sexually assaulted or raped.
According to investigators, the first known attack was at a small downtown Boston store around 4 p.m. Dec. 16. Gillis said a robber -- armed with a gun -- sexually assaulted a female employee of the store.
In another attack, on Christmas Eve at 4 p.m., a woman in her 20s was sexually assaulted at a store in The Burlington Coat Mall on Granite Street in Braintree by a gun-wielding robber who said a friend was waiting for him outside, according to Braintree Detective Sgt. Paul Frazier.
On Dec. 27 at 10:15 a.m., a man carrying a revolver raped two women employees of the Hit or Miss Store on Route 9 in Framingham before escaping with money from the cash register and the safe, Framingham Police Sgt. Steven Worio said. The detective said the man locked one of the women in a closet while he raped the other. Then he raped the second woman while the first was locked in the closet.
Last Friday, Norwood police said a female employee at the Cellular One store on Route 1 in the Galleria on the Green was raped around 1 p.m. by a robber, who had ordered her at gunpoint into a back room.
In two crimes, stores were robbed but no one was sexually assaulted, police said, but in one -- the robbery of the Wearguard Store in the Dedham Plaza -- a composite of the suspect was "similar" to drawings of suspects in the Framingham and Boston cases. The other was the Jan. 4 armed robbery of the Cribs and Cradle Store on Route 1 south in Saugus.

AREA POLICE SAY THEY SUSPECT 1 MAN IN 5 ATTACKS ON WOMEN
Author(s): Tom Coakley, Globe Staff Date: January 18, 1990 Page: 29 Section: METRO
NORWOOD -- A meeting yesterday of investigators from Boston and five surrounding communities has strengthened police suspicions that one man may have sexually attacked five women while robbing small stores in Greater Boston over the past month.
"We certainly cannot overlook the similarities," Norwood Police Chief George J. DiBlasi said at a press conference. "We are very carefully looking at the prospect" that one person committed the crimes. According to DiBlasi and others at the press conference, police see similarities in the physical appearance of the suspect and his method in the robberies that occurred between Dec. 16 and Jan. 12 in Boston, Braintree, Framingham, Dedham, Saugus and Norwood.
Three women were raped in the attacks: two in the Dec. 27 robbery of a Route 9 clothing store in Framingham and another during the robbery last Friday of a telephone store on Route 1 in Norwood.
Two women were sexually assaulted: one in a Dec. 16 robbery at a Boston store near Quincy Market and another during the Dec. 24 robbery of a store on Granite Street in Braintree.
Clerks were not sexually assaulted in similar small store robberies on Dec. 30 at the Dedham Plaza on Route 1 and on Jan. 4 on Route 1 south in Saugus.
In all of the robberies the suspect has been described as a heavy-set white male with a beer belly and either reddish brown or black hair. He is between 5 feet 7 inches and 6 feet tall and is in his mid-30s, according to descriptions.
In five of the crimes he carried a revolver and in the sixth he said he had one under his coat. In several cases, he referred to a friend outside the store who would harm victims if they left the scene of the crime too soon.
Investigators said in some cases the suspect was articulate and seemed to possess a knowledge of the retail trade and to have cased the stores prior to striking.
Police from Braintree and Framingham, who participated in the press conference, said yesterday that detectives from their towns and Boston met several weeks ago to discuss similarities in the robberies there. Composite drawings were printed in local newspapers after the meeting, they said.
But the scope of the string of robberies and rapes was not realized until after Friday's attack here.
DiBlasi said police went to reporters yesterday in an effort to gather as much information as possible about the unsolved crimes and to warn store owners of the possibility of attacks.
"We believe that the media attention will help us catch this guy," DiBlasi said. He urged anyone who thinks he might have information about the crimes to call the Boston Police Sex Assaults Hot Line -- 247-4400.
"We want to warn store owners. We don't want anyone hurt. We want them to know there is a problem out there," he said.
DiBlasi said Boston police are preparing a psychological profile of a probable suspect.
The chief said that police are not ruling out the possibility that the crimes were committed by more than one person but that the similarities were striking.
Drawings of suspects from the robberies in Norwood, Saugus and Framingham were pinned to a board behind investigators during the press conference. The drawings were dissimilar in some details. One had a mustache, others didn't, for example. Two had glasses, a third did not.
But DiBlasi and the other investigators said basic characteristics were consistent.
"Things that cannot change -- height, weight -- have not changed," said DiBlasi. "You can change your personal appearance -- mustaches and a pair of glasses.”

POLICE SEE SIMILARITIES IN RAPES, ROBBERIES
Author(s): Don Aucoin, Globe Staff Date: February 2, 1990 Page: 50 Section: METRO
A man who robbed a Braintree pharmacy over the weekend may be the assailant sought in sexual attacks on five women in Greater Boston, police said yesterday.
"There's a good possibility" the armed robbery Saturday at the CVS Pharmacy in South Shore Plaza was carried out by the rapist who has eluded half a dozen police departments over the past month, said Braintree Police Detective James McDonald. The robber matched the description of the assailant given by victims of robberies and rapes in stores in Boston, Braintree, Framingham, Dedham, Saugus and Norwood, according to McDonald. His method was similar to that used in the string of robberies, McDonald said.
According to police, the man robbed the female manager at the CVS store on Friday.
The robber was described as a white male between 35 and 45 years old, standing 5 feet 10 inches tall, with a large pot belly and short-cropped hair. He was wearing a brown "canvas-type" jacket, dungarees and workboots, McDonald said.
Investigators have "a lot of leads," including a description of the car used to flee a previous robbery, but no suspects, McDonald said. Detectives from all six communities met Wednesday to discuss the store rapes and robberies and to pool information, according to Framingham Police Capt. Thomas Cobb.
Three female employees of stores have been raped in the attacks -- two in the daytime robbery on Dec. 27 of a clothing store on Route 9 in Framingham, and another during the Jan. 12 robbery of a telephone store on Route 1 in Norwood. A female employee of a small downtown Boston store was sexually assaulted by a robber on Dec. 16, and another woman was sexually assaulted on Christmas Eve in a Braintree store.
Clerks were not sexually assaulted in other robberies in small stores in the Dedham Plaza and Route 1 in Saugus. In each instance the attacker has acted alone, usually carrying a revolver.