When Center City rapist Troy Graves slipped into women's apartments late at night, he sometimes just watched them sleep, standing over them for 15 to 20 minutes, and then left without waking them.
And when he did attack women, he often engaged in bizarre behavior - once leaving a hog-tied victim in bed while he casually rearranged her refrigerator poem magnets into 21 lines of sexually suggestive messages.
At one point, Graves apparently believed that he could win the heart of one of his Philadelphia victims after his attack. He planned to take out a personal advertisement asking to meet her for a date.
Information from Colorado law enforcement officials and lawyers involved in the Philadelphia case paint this image of a wildly conflicted predator who murdered University of Pennsylvania graduate student Shannon Schieber and sexually assaulted 12 other women in two cities. Graves, 30, was sentenced here last week to life in prison with no parole.
Criminologists say Graves in many ways fits the common profile of a serial rapist. He started as a Peeping Tom, long before he began the physical attacks. He was a thrill-seeker, and when the thrill of voyeurism grew old, he steadily progressed to more aggressive behavior. He even toyed with police, providing them with leads, daring them to catch him - another thrill-seeking ploy used by many serial criminals.
But in other ways he didn't fit patterns, and many of his actions seemed simply bizarre.
His attorneys, Paul Conway and Dan Stevenson, said in interviews that Graves told police that he had entered the apartments of the three Philadelphia women while they were asleep, silently watching, never touching them, and then slipping out of their homes.
All of those break-ins occurred between the date of his first sexual assault, June 20, 1997, and Aug. 28, 1999 - his last rape in Philadelphia.
Police spokesman Sgt. Roland Lee said the department would not comment on the break-ins, disclosed last week by members of Graves' defense team.
Stevenson said one of the incidents occurred in a woman's apartment at 10th and Pine Streets, but Graves was unable to tell his attorneys or police details about the other two. Because the women never awoke, they never reported the break-ins.
There was a similar pattern in Fort Collins, Colo., where Graves told police he repeatedly entered women's apartments, sometimes attacking, sometimes not.
"There was always this internal struggle, whether to do it or not do it," said Conway.
He said Graves seemed to be pulled in different directions by "the good angel and the bad angel" each time he broke into an apartment.
"Sometimes he won out over himself. Some times he didn't," Conway said. "He always waited 15 to 20 minutes looking over the person. This internal struggle was going on."
Both Conway, the chief of the Public Defender's Homicide Squad, and Stevenson, of the Defender's Death Penalty Unit, said Graves was one of the most complex clients they had ever defended.
On the one hand, many of his acquaintances and even law-enforcement personnel were struck by his respectful, cooperative demeanor. "On the other hand, he does such horrible things at night," said Conway.
"He is the most fascinating guy I've talked to from the criminal justice system," Conway said. "He's not insane. In my view, he's not a multiple-personality case."
"The closest thing it comes to is an irresistible impulse. But in many cases, he was able to overcome the impulse. Where it comes from, he doesn't know."
Stevenson said Graves clearly escalated in aggressiveness.
At first, he sought thrills by climbing onto the roofs of Center City apartment buildings late at night, prompting the two defense lawyers to give him the nickname of Spiderman.
Stevenson said Center City was an ideal site for Graves because he blended into a subculture of men who regularly walk the streets at night, some of whom are also voyeurs.
He said Graves said he became so familiar with the Rittenhouse Square street scene that he could recognize other night creepers and peepers from the area.
Graves reportedly confessed to authorities that police had stopped him on the street for questioning between five and 10 times in Philadelphia during the years he was attacking women here. He was let go each time because police had no reason to hold him for any criminal activity. Only two of those stops appeared in police records.
When Graves began his physical attacks, his actions became even stranger.
On June 20, 1997, he attacked a 28-year-old artist in her apartment near 21st and Pine Streets. Slipping through the security bars that were supposed to block an open window, he watched the artist for 15 to 20 minutes before he climbed on top of her.
He fondled her, but never raped her, mainly because she engaged him in a long conversation while he was on top of her.
"Once she connected with him as a person, he couldn't continue. She had some way of connecting with him. Apparently she was very smart," said Conway.
The police report on the incident says that one method the woman used to prevent the rape was to tell Graves that she might have AIDS.
"I asked him so many questions, mainly to keep him focused mentally, not physically. I told him I could have AIDS and he could die from this," the police report quotes the victim as saying.
Graves left the artist but didn't forget her. Conway said Graves considered putting a personal ad in the City Paper, a local alternative weekly, asking her for a date. He never sent the ad.
The Philadelphia police sex-crimes unit thought the artist's story about Graves was not believable. As The Inquirer reported in 1999 before Graves' identity was known, investigators declared that no crime had been committed and stamped the police report as "inactive."
The file then was stuffed in a cabinet for more than a year until homicide investigators resurrected it. Graves typically covered his victims' faces with a pillow or a towel to block their view of him, though two of his Philadelphia victims caught enough of a glimpse of him for police to produce a sketch.
During his Philadelphia crime spree, Graves showed a confusing mix of hatred and sympathy toward his victims.
In an August 1997 attack on Pine Street, he told his victim that he had raped her "because I am unhappy."
He added: "I'm sorry our paths crossed."
Both lawyers said Graves thought that he would never be caught if he left Philadelphia, and he was determined to start a new life by joining the Air Force shortly after his last rape here in August 1999.
"He was home free if he went in the Air Force and left," said Conway.
But Graves did not stop attacking.
On May 1, 2001, he attacked a 20-year-old student from a Fort Collins community college while she slept. After he climbed on top of her, he asked her if she wanted a glass of water. He asked her about music and turned on her stereo. Then he forced her to perform oral sex.
There were more attacks.
On August 5, 2001, he sexually assaulted his fifth Colorado victim, a 20-year-old Colorado State University student. After completing the assault and tying the woman's hands and feet, Graves went to her kitchen to rearrange the refrigerator magnets. He left 21 lines of phrases, including need an easy date, want hot, and I enjoy him.
One of the last words he placed on the refrigerator was insane.
When Philadelphia police learned of the pattern of attacks in Fort Collins, homicide investigators began searching address data to determine the names of men who had moved from Philadelphia to Fort Collins.
Graves' name surfaced in the search, and, in April, Fort Collins police asked him to come in for an interview.
Conway said Graves knew he would be arrested, but he did not run because he now had a wife and did not want to leave.
"He knew he was going to get caught. Part of him wanted to get caught," Conway said. "He had plenty of opportunities to run. He just couldn't leave his wife."
Now, Conway says, Graves hopes that someone can help him understand what drove him to commit crimes.
He is scheduled to be returned to Colorado this week to begin his life sentence. As a condition of his plea agreement, he will be extensively examined by FBI profilers studying the psyche of serial rapists.
In an effort to unravel his own mystery, Graves has taken to reading in prison.
His chosen topic is unusual. Graves has been reading up on Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, the brilliant but twisted murderers who in 1924 killed just for the thrill of it.
Like Graves, the pair were given life sentences. Loeb was killed by another inmate, but Leopold became a model prisoner - a story of redemption that his lawyers say intrigues Graves.
