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American Morning
Serial Rapist in Miami
Aired June 12, 2003 - 09:37 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: In Florida, a widespread manhunt is under way in Miami for a serial rapist. DNA evidence links the same man to at least four rapes, including two young girls who were attacked while they were home alone.
Susan Candiotti is live in Miami with the latest -- Susan.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn.
There is a task force of at least a hundred police officers now at work, trying to find this attacker. Police are now linking through DNA the rapes of at least four people, two young girls and two women. The earliest one occurred last fall. The latest just within the last few weeks. The two positive identifications have been made among two young girls, as I said, and two women, and there are two more probable attacks involving a young girl and an assault on a 79-year-old woman.
Now police, and city employees and even volunteers have been distributing fliers in several neighborhoods that show composite sketches that have been described by victims. Police say this is the very same man. What's especially worrisome, according to authorities, is that the suspect is targeting not only women, but children. The latest victims, as we said, ages 11, 12 and 13.
Of course, one of the questions is why police apparently did not make a connection until yesterday among the most recent attacks and those that began last year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LT. BILL SCHWARTZ, MIAMI POLICE: Now we've been focusing on the children, because that's where our resources have been, and the mo have has been these children are around the same age, the same description, the same idea of breaking into the house to take them, but of course, after a while you have to stand in the horizon to check anything and everything you can to solve the crime you are working on presently. So that's where the other cases came in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CANDIOTTI: Joining us now is a spokesman for the Miami Police Department, Detective Delrese Moss (ph).
Now, Mr. Moss, there are questions that are being raised as to why, for example, was there a sample from a rape that occurred last September that was still sitting here in the Miami Police Department and apparently was not submitted to a county crime lab until just last week, after these latest attacks occurred. It appears to the layperson that a connection might have been made earlier among all these attacks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, initially there was nothing in the first two cases, but basically, linked them. Nothing at the surface. The belief has been that there's some magical database that we can PUT this DNA information into, and suddenly, it would give us a hit. Now that wasn't available to us at the time. Now what happened, at the end of last month, we were give an invitation by the county to basically submit new evidence or submit old evidence to see if it could be compared, because they have new grant moneys and they have new facilities available.
And what we did was what seems like a snafu actually was a blessing in disguise, because it was through sitting down and analyzing different cases that we had and being able to send them over to be compared against each other at this time, based upon that invitation, that actually caught the link. Had we sent the stuff over then, it would still be sitting and would have not been analyzed or compared against the current cases.
CANDIOTTI: Let's quickly clear up that so a layperson understands. So automatically, when you receive a sample, it doesn't automatically go into a database, so that when another attack occurs, you push a button and see if there is a comparison?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's correct. That's not a resource we have available to us. With the grant money, what they were able to do is go back and look at other stuff and analyze it, make cross analyzations and make cross-comparisons in order to do these things. If this stuff had been sent over in December, it would have sat. So the question really is, whether it would have sat there or sat here, and fortunately, because it was resubmitted, we were able to link it to these cases.
CANDIOTTI: Well, in any case, Detective Moss, certainly everyone hopes that the attacker will be found and found quickly.
Daryn, back to you.
KAGAN: All right, Susan Candiotti in Miami. Susan, thank you for that.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired June 12, 2003 - 09:37 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: In Florida, a widespread manhunt is under way in Miami for a serial rapist. DNA evidence links the same man to at least four rapes, including two young girls who were attacked while they were home alone.
Susan Candiotti is live in Miami with the latest -- Susan.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn.
There is a task force of at least a hundred police officers now at work, trying to find this attacker. Police are now linking through DNA the rapes of at least four people, two young girls and two women. The earliest one occurred last fall. The latest just within the last few weeks. The two positive identifications have been made among two young girls, as I said, and two women, and there are two more probable attacks involving a young girl and an assault on a 79-year-old woman.
Now police, and city employees and even volunteers have been distributing fliers in several neighborhoods that show composite sketches that have been described by victims. Police say this is the very same man. What's especially worrisome, according to authorities, is that the suspect is targeting not only women, but children. The latest victims, as we said, ages 11, 12 and 13.
Of course, one of the questions is why police apparently did not make a connection until yesterday among the most recent attacks and those that began last year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LT. BILL SCHWARTZ, MIAMI POLICE: Now we've been focusing on the children, because that's where our resources have been, and the mo have has been these children are around the same age, the same description, the same idea of breaking into the house to take them, but of course, after a while you have to stand in the horizon to check anything and everything you can to solve the crime you are working on presently. So that's where the other cases came in.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CANDIOTTI: Joining us now is a spokesman for the Miami Police Department, Detective Delrese Moss (ph).
Now, Mr. Moss, there are questions that are being raised as to why, for example, was there a sample from a rape that occurred last September that was still sitting here in the Miami Police Department and apparently was not submitted to a county crime lab until just last week, after these latest attacks occurred. It appears to the layperson that a connection might have been made earlier among all these attacks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, initially there was nothing in the first two cases, but basically, linked them. Nothing at the surface. The belief has been that there's some magical database that we can PUT this DNA information into, and suddenly, it would give us a hit. Now that wasn't available to us at the time. Now what happened, at the end of last month, we were give an invitation by the county to basically submit new evidence or submit old evidence to see if it could be compared, because they have new grant moneys and they have new facilities available.
And what we did was what seems like a snafu actually was a blessing in disguise, because it was through sitting down and analyzing different cases that we had and being able to send them over to be compared against each other at this time, based upon that invitation, that actually caught the link. Had we sent the stuff over then, it would still be sitting and would have not been analyzed or compared against the current cases.
CANDIOTTI: Let's quickly clear up that so a layperson understands. So automatically, when you receive a sample, it doesn't automatically go into a database, so that when another attack occurs, you push a button and see if there is a comparison?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's correct. That's not a resource we have available to us. With the grant money, what they were able to do is go back and look at other stuff and analyze it, make cross analyzations and make cross-comparisons in order to do these things. If this stuff had been sent over in December, it would have sat. So the question really is, whether it would have sat there or sat here, and fortunately, because it was resubmitted, we were able to link it to these cases.
CANDIOTTI: Well, in any case, Detective Moss, certainly everyone hopes that the attacker will be found and found quickly.
Daryn, back to you.
KAGAN: All right, Susan Candiotti in Miami. Susan, thank you for that.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
