Philadelphia Inquirer
Thursday, December 13, 2001

With DNA only, rapist identified in warrant

The chemical profile of the Center City attacker was cited in arrest paperwork. He is also sought in Colorado.

By Craig R. McCoy,
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office said yesterday it had identified the Center City rapist.

The man is: D3S1358: 15, 16; D16S539: 11, 12; TH01: 6, 9.3; TPOX: 8, 11 . . . and more.

To stay ahead of the statute of limitations, District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham has obtained an arrest warrant in the Center City rape case naming the suspect only as "John Doe" but spelling out his long alphanumeric DNA profile.

DNA tests have shown that the suspect sexually assaulted four women in 1997, killed Wharton School student Shannon Schieber in 1998, and raped another woman in 1999.

Although the rapist has not been linked to any assaults in Philadelphia since the 1999 attack, he resurfaced this year in Fort Collins, Col., where DNA has tied him to sexual assaults of six young women there this summer. Then, he went underground again.

To ensure the local sexual-assault cases would remain viable in years ahead, Abraham recently filed a meticulous six-page affidavit of probable cause to obtain an arrest warrant in the case. Police homicide detectives obtained the arrest warrant yesterday.

The affidavit contained new and chilling information on his attacks, detailing the suspect's predilection for talking with his victims during the assaults.

While there is no statute of limitations for homicide, police were facing Pennsylvania's five-year limit on arrests for rape.

If Abraham had not filed the warrant, the statute of limitations for the first assault would have expired June 20, 2002. On that date five years earlier, he molested an artist in her 21st Street apartment after slipping through an upstairs window as she slept.

In filing the "John Doe" DNA warrant, Abraham was joining a new trend among prosecutors, who say advances in DNA lab work have called into question statutory limits on arrests.

DNA links have solved many crimes in recent years. Earlier this month, police in Washington state made an arrest in the so-called Green River murder cases dating to 1982.

But prosecutors said yesterday they were unaware of a case yet across the nation testing whether such John Doe warrants were legal. Abraham has obtained John Doe warrants against three suspects in other attacks, but no arrests have been made.

Deputy Police Commissioner Charles Brennan said yesterday that DNA lab work should pave the way for several more such warrants over the next two months.

The Pennsylvania legislature is considering extending the five-year statute of limitations for rape to 12 years. But that change is not expected to be retroactive.

One of the Center City sexual-assault victims said yesterday that she had been increasingly aware that the statute of limitations for prosecution was running out.

"Good," said the woman, who asked not to be named, when told of the arrest warrant. "We all have our own little piece of closure we need to have on this. And that's a help."

Sylvester J. Schieber, the father of Shannon Schieber, said that he and his wife, Vicki, were hopeful that DNA would ultimately trip up the attacker.

"It would be a pity if this guy got to walk away from his culpability for the attacks on other women simply because of the time lapse," said Schieber, of Chevy Chase, Md.

"Somewhere down the road, this guy is going to stumble," he added. "There's going to be a trail of evidence, biological evidence, that nails the guy. It might be five years. It might be 10 years."

On the night before Shannon Schieber's body was found, police had gone to her apartment near Rittenhouse Square after receiving a 911 call from a neighbor who reported hearing screams. Police responded but left after knocking on the door and receiving no response.

The Schiebers are suing the city and the Police Department in federal court, alleging the responding officers' failure to knock down the door contributed to her death. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is to hear oral arguments on the case Jan. 25 and later rule whether the lawsuit should go to trial.

The city maintains the police acted properly, given what the officers at the door knew at the time.

Abraham said during a news conference yesterday that she was certain the rapist had attacked other women. She said additional cases had not surfaced because the victims had not reported the attacks to police or because of a lack of available DNA evidence.

While the Colorado attacks have been the only conclusive links to the attacker outside Philadelphia, Abraham said he likely had struck again in some other college town.

"He is continuing to rape, choke and threaten and to do horribly unspeakable things to women wherever he is," she said.