A man who was caught on video beating up three women in an apparently random South Philadelphia attack could be linked to other attacks on women, including a sexual assault, police say.
The video shows three women walking along the 1200 block of Morris Street around 11:15 p.m. Wednesday as an unidentified man follows them. The man then attacks them and repeatedly punches them as they scream and call for help. He then walks away after saying something to the victims.
“He made some utterances. None of them really made any sense. We’re not even sure what he was trying to say,” Philadelphia Police Department Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said during a Thursday afternoon press conference.
The attack left a 27-year-old woman with a swollen lip, a 29-year-old with a broken nose and another 29-year-old with a swollen lip and cuts to her face, Vanore said.
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Around 20 minutes later, a man matching the description of the suspect in the Morris Street attack – 5 feet, 8 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall with a stocky build and wearing a red jacket – went up to a woman sitting on a porch and punched her unconscious, Vanore said.
Then, around 7:30 p.m. Thursday, a woman getting off the bus to go to work in the Roxborough neighborhood was followed and sexually assaulted by a man “with a very similar description,” the chief inspector said.
The man took off with some of the victim’s items, including her phone, he said. The PPD’s special victims unit then reached out to police in Montgomery County to see if they knew of anyone fitting the description of the suspect “in the area where her phone may have been,” Vanore said.
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Their Montgomery County counterparts told Philadelphia police that they had arrested a man in Whitpain Township for attacking a woman during a carjacking, Vanore said.
The PPD’s special victims unit has enough evidence to connect the suspect in the Whitpain Township carjacking to the Roxborough sexual assault, he said.
Investigators could not say for certain, but they were looking into the possibility that the attacks in those neighborhoods could also be connected to the attacks in South Philadelphia, Vanore said.
