Philadelphia Daily News
Tuesday, October 2, 2001

Timoney: Suspect isn't serial rapist

Police Commissioner John Timoney yesterday angrily denounced weekend TV reports that investigators suspect a Philadelphia man could be the killer rapist who terrorized the city in 1998 and 1999 and attacked several women in Colorado last summer.

Police arrested a man Friday on an outstanding drug warrant, Timoney said during an afternoon press conference.

They questioned him in connection with the rapes of five Philadelphia women and the murder of 23-year-old Wharton student Shannon Schieber.

But DNA tests ruled him out as the rapist, Timoney emphasized.

Investigators have intensified their hunt for the serial rapist since learning that DNA tests confirmed that he assaulted at least two women last summer in Fort Collins, Colo. - and might be responsible for five more attacks since May there.

Police weren't able to uncover any link between the man arrested Friday and Colorado, Timoney added.

"He was just another individual we were looking at, and to portray him as anything else but that is wrong," Timoney said. "This is not the guy." *