Police: No arrests, suspects in Dec. rape case

By Jonathan McFadden
mcfaddenj@mytjnow.com

Rock Hill Police are still looking for the man responsible for allegedly abducting a Winthrop student from the University Place parking lot and sexually assaulting her at an apartment complex away from campus more than a month ago. 

The police do not have anyone in custody and the incident is still under investigation, said Brad Redfearn, lieutenant with the Rock Hill Police Department.

Finding a culprit in a case like this one, Redfearn said, is no easy task. 

“We have no suspect name, no exact age, no photograph,” Redfearn said. “It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack.” 

What the police do have, he said, is a composite sketch of the alleged rapist crafted from the victim’s own memory. 

The victim said her attacker was a black male in his mid-20s with a goatee and wore a black nylon skullcap, dark jeans and a dark hooded sweatshirt, according to the original incident report.

The Rock Hill Police Department, the agency handling the case because the assault occurred off campus, released the sketch on Dec. 17, 2011, three days after the initial assault. 

At around 2 a.m. on Dec. 14, 2011, a 20-year-old female student walked out of her University Place apartment building to get something out of her car only to be confronted by a knife-wielding black male, according to the original incident report.

The man put the knife to the student’s right side and forced her into her own car, the report says. 

He then instructed her to drive to Innsbrook Commons, an apartment complex at the intersection between Constitution Boulevard and West Main Street, where, the report says, he forced the student to get undressed and sexually assaulted her between two cars in the parking lot. 

After raping her, the victim told police that her attacker told her he had just given her AIDS, the report says.

The fear of contracting a sexually transmitted infection is a legitimate concern for all victims of sexual assault, said Jane Alleva, interim director of Safe Passage, a nonprofit agency which offers assistance and services to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

What this student’s attacker said to her is in line with the purpose of any sexual assault, Alleva said, which is to humiliate and control the victim.

“He humiliated her and he also controlled her beyond the rape because he put that [threat of AIDS] in her head and left her with this very big overwhelming fear that he knew he might have AIDS and that he was going to give it to her,” Alleva said. 

Such a threat fits in with other threatening warnings attackers may issue to their victims, such as “I have your driver’s license,” “I’m going to come back and do it to you” or “I’m going to kill your family,” Alleva said. “It’s not unusual for a perpetrator to try to control the victim even beyond the initial victimization.”

Now, as the investigation’s clock ticks, the victim may feel as if her safety has been stolen from her, Alleva said. 

“It’s even harder when they don’t know who the assailant is,” she said. 

Based off what she’s heard from past clients, Alleva said victims feel as if they could one day be in the grocery store with their assaulter. 

“That’s the fear, that every time they go out in public this person that knows [them], knows where [they] live, knows where [they] grocery shop,” Alleva said. 

The trauma can become so overwhelming that, to victims, everyone fitting the physique, skin color, eye color or hair type of the attacker becomes a potential perpetrator, she said.

With all sexual assaults, there’s always the stigma of shame that lingers afterwards, Alleva said.

“Even though we try so hard not to have them feel that way, it’s hard [for them] not to feel embarrassed or question themselves, ‘why did I do this?’ or ‘why did I not do that?’” she said. 

The victim is never to blame, Alleva said though they often tend to question themselves. 

“That’s your right to be able to go to your car, to go outside, to go to a party...” she said. 

With the student’s attacker still at large, the police are asking for the public’s assistance. 

“We can only be in certain places at certain times,” Redfearn said. “We need more information, more people to call in.”

“The public needs to tell us” if they observe any suspicious activity that may point to a possible suspect, Redfearn said. 

Not long after the assault, citizens began calling in tips to the department, Redfearn said. What resulted were 30 different possible suspects fitting the attacker’s description that detectives and officers had to check out.

The process is still underway.

“None of those may be the suspect,” Redfearn said. “We can’t just snatch people off the streets.”

Solving a crime of this caliber is “not like TV,” Redfearn said.

People will often watch entertainment shows like CSI Miami, he said, and assume a heavy duty crime can be pieced together and solved within 60 minutes.

“That’s not how the real world works,” Redfearn said. 

What’s more, “stranger rapes,” as Redfearn termed it, are not common in Rock Hill--or in the United States.

Statistics from the Bureau of Justice show that 77 percent of completed rapes are committed by “non-strangers.” Similar 2002 statistics from the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault show that a woman is four times more likely to be raped by an acquaintance than a stranger.

Sexual assault remains one of the most under reported crimes, with 60 percent still being left unreported, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).

Acquaintance rapes happen to be reported even less frequently. In 2007, 90 percent of acquaintance rape victims did not report the assault, according to the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault. 

Asked whether the police had any forensic evidence to help them with the investigation, Redfearn said the police usually do not comment on any evidence in their possession for fear that disclosing that information could hinder the case.

Speaking for himself, Redfearn said he was unsure whether detectives had any forensic evidence at their disposal.

Safety measures 

Once Campus Police learned of the assault, Chief of Campus Police Frank Zebedis sent out a mass e-mail to the Winthrop community alerting them what had transpired.

Zebedis cautioned students to remain “vigilant at all times” and asked that they be aware of their surroundings. 

According to Rock Hill Police, the young woman was kidnapped from the parking lot closest to Columbia Avenue, bordering the Courtyard, the new Winthrop Operations Center and Fourman’s Repair Shop.

University Place does not have any security cameras overseeing its parking lot, according to Amy Preiss Barger, director of marketing for the Press Company, an acquisitions company that boasts University Place as one of its properties.

What the complex does have, Barger said, is an on-site courtesy officer whose phone number is given to each resident.

It’s a number senior marketing major Rumelia Greenlee has never dialed; not because she didn’t need it, but because she never had it.

“I don’t know anything about that,” she said. “I know there’s an officer that lives there, but I don’t have his number.”

Greenlee, who juggles a third shift job with 15 hours this semester, said one word that sums up her feelings with living in University Place after the assault: “Unsafe.”

“It seems like they’re not even making moves to protect us,” Greenlee said. “A couple of nights the police were there that whole week, but after that week we didn’t see a lot of policemen.”

Greenlee also knows of times when people who don’t live in the complex manage to get inside by kicking in the supposedly locked, key-access-only doors.

“Why keep the doors locked if people can unlock them?” Greenlee said.

During Christmas Break, Greenlee was forced to stay in Rock Hill --and thus University Place-- because she had to work. When the Winthrop student was abducted and assaulted, Greenlee could have been taking her routine 2 a.m. break from work.

Now, her routine’s changed a bit. When she comes home for her break, she usually stays on the phone with someone and talks to them “just in case I get kidnapped, they can hear me,” she said.

Despite Greenlee’s concerns about safety, there are some safety measures in the area.

Campus Walk, a former University Place building purchased by Walk2Campus, does have security cameras that oversee the parking lot, according to Julie Smith, Walk2Campus’ director of marketing and leasing.

Though unable to discuss the situation in detail, Smith said the off-campus student housing company has been cooperative with the police amid the investigation.

Innsbrook Commons, the complex where the actual sexual assault took place, does have security cameras monitoring its properties, said Kim Smith, property manager for the complex.

Officials and employees with the complex are still cooperating with police, Kim Smith said, and recently met with detectives again on January 10.

Kim Smith, though, said she could not elaborate on what was discussed or disclose any further information since the incident’s investigation is still pending. 

Both University Place and Campus Walk are private properties, with responsibility for their own security measures, said Rebecca Masters, Winthrop’s assistant to the president for public affairs.

These properties belong under the jurisdiction of the City of Rock Hill, Masters said, just like other apartments farther away from campus.

“WUPD and RHPD maintain a mutual support agreement whenever both are needed in a specific instance, but the primary responsible agency is determined by where an incident occurs,” she said.

Members of Campus Police do patrol the area surrounding University Place, including the parking lot, said Chief of Police Frank Zebedis.

“We don’t answer calls there, but we are in the area,” he said.

Zebedis confirmed that the Rock Hill Police Department’s dispatch responds when a 9-1-1 call is made from a University Place resident. 

On Jan. 9, Zebedis sent out another e-mail encouraging students to be aware when walking on and off campus. Seventy-two emergency call boxes and elevator phones are available on campus, he said, and Campus Police officers will escort students if needed.

Zebedis also included a link to several safety tips available on the Campus Police website.

Since the case is still unsolved, any persons who may have information about the case are asked to contact Sgt. Wes Wiles of Campus Police at 803-323-2541.