Cops nab suspect in serial rapes

At around 1 am, police officers attached to the South Western Division converged on a house in Rancho Quemado which had been under surveillance, for the past week.

Several of the victims were contacted yesterday by Supt Nadir Mohammed of the San Fernando CID to attend an identification parade.

The serial rapist stole cars from parking lots and streets in San Fernando on late evenings and would pretend to be "pulling bull". He picked up young women, particularly those who appear to be stranded for transportation and took them to lonely canefields where he raped them.

Police yesterday pulled the files on a series of rape incidents, one of which involved a June 14 attack on a 23-year-old woman of Oropouche. The woman was rescued by a taxi-driver along the M2 Ring Road, Diamond Village, after she jumped out of the grey Lancer motor vehicle her assailant was driving

Following that incident, Police Headquarters (South) released a digital photo image of the suspect, obtained from an ABM machine at a San Fernando commercial bank. Police said the man had stolen a bank card from a physically handicapped woman who was a passenger in one of the vehicles he stole after abducting Mary Baldeo-Waheed on May 26.

Baldeo-Waheed jumped out the suspect’s vehicle, near the Mosquito Creek, La Romaine. She died at San Fernando General Hospital six weeks later of massive head injuries.

The suspect is believed to be involved in the attacks of two other women - one from Pleasantville and the other from Cocoyea.

Police said when the digital image was published three weeks ago, the man went into hiding at his mother’s house. A senior police officer told Newsday the suspect will be placed on a series of identification parades.