Philadelphia police have released surveillance video of a man who they say broke into an East Oak Lane apartment and sexually assaulted a woman while her four-year-old son slept in the next room.
Police are searching for a man accused of sexually assaulting a woman while her young son slept inside her apartment in the East Oak Lane section of Philadelphia.
Police say the unidentified man scaled up a second floor balcony and then entered the rear sliding glass door of a unit at the Park Waverly Apartments on the 100 block of East Godfrey Avenue back on May 25 around 3:20 a.m.
The suspect entered the bedroom of a 23-year-old woman and sexually assaulted her before fleeing out of the same rear door, according to police.
The victim’s 4-year-old son was only a few feet away and sleeping in another room while she was sexually assaulted, police said.
Police believe the same suspect also peeped through the victim’s window back on April 4.
“She said she thought someone was looking through her kitchen window,” Philadelphia Police Capt. Mark Burgmann said. “We think it may be the same individual who may be associated with the building or at least from the area.”
A spokesperson for Aion Management, which runs the Park Waverly Apartments, said they sent out a mass email to residents the day of the assault. While management told the residents of the nearly 500 apartments to lock their doors and be cautious, they did not specific that it was a sexual assault. They say they didn’t inform residents of the nature of the incident because police had just started their investigation.
Residents told NBC10 they initially thought it was just a car break-in when they first received the email.
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“That could’ve been my mother, anybody,” Shonta Sullivan said. “I’m a mother, I have grandkids. It could be any one of us.”
The suspect is described as a black male with a husky build between the ages of 20 and 28, standing 6-feet and weighing 225 pounds. He was last seen wearing a white shirt and dark-colored pants.
If you have any information on his whereabouts, please call Philadelphia Police.
