June 20, 1997: Graves slipped through a narrow air-conditioner opening, woke a 28-year-old artist, and molested her.
Police said the opening was too small and considered the victim a liar. They classified the attack as an "investigation of person" case, a noncrime coding now disowned by the Police Department.
Investigators also delayed 19 months in running DNA tests that would ultimately tie her case to other Graves' attacks.
The victim ultimately stopped cooperating with police.
July 11, 1997:Graves choked a 25-year-old office worker unconscious and raped her. The attack took place in her apartment on Pine Street, near 21st. The sex-crimes unit again classified this attack as an "investigation of person" case. Despite frequent appeals, the victim says she could not get police to examine her case as fitting in the unfolding pattern of the Center City rapist.
Aug. 6, 1997:Graves squeezed through a seven-inch gap in burglar bars to rape a 24-year-old student on Pine Street, near 16th Street.
Police classified this as a rape.
Aug. 13, 1997: Graves raped a woman in her early 20s who had fallen asleep watching TV. The attack took place in an apartment on Pine Street, near 17th Street. Police classified this as a rape.
May 7, 1998:Graves climbed to a second-floor balcony and attacked Shannon Schieber, 23, whom he strangled in a struggle. Her apartment was on 23d Street, between Spruce and Locust. Because of computer problems in the police DNA lab, police did not realize until eight months later that she had been attacked by the same intruder who had attacked other women in 1997.
Aug. 28, 1999:Graves unscrewed a barred security grate and raped an 18-year-old college student.
Police classified this as a rape.
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After this rape in the summer of 1999, Graves did not strike again in Philadelphia.
It turned out that he had joined the Air Force two months after the rape. He was posted to a base near Fort Collins, Colo.
There, he assaulted eight more young women in 2001 and 2002. Police in Philadelphia and Fort Collins compared DNA evidence and realized that the same attacker had struck in both cities. Computer work by Philadelphia police isolated Graves as a likely suspect who had lived in both places when the attacks took place.
Graves, now 31, was arrested in April 2002. He is serving a life sentence.
