Obsession (11 page)

Matuszny knew from the next case on, all future acts of the West Side Rapist would be worked out of the new Sex Crimes Unit, but he had no interest in transferring downtown. Fortunately, one of the detectives from the Second District, who was also a friend of his, did transfer there. Ed Gray was at work in the new unit just a few weeks when he and his partner responded to a rape in the West Side that sounded just like the cases he knew Bob Matuszny had been working on: a young white man fitting the earlier descriptions of the West Side Rapist—including the bump on his penis—broke in on the victim just after her boyfriend had left for work. He then forced her to perform oral sex at knifepoint.

If a case isn’t solved within the first few days, there is always a chance it will go stale once it cools off. I’ve seen a lot of investigations languish over time as responsibilities are reassigned, people retire or get transferred, and there’s little continuity. But Ed Gray did not let that happen. He called Bob and invited him to go along as he and his new partner, rookie Andrea Zbydniewski, known as Zeb, went to interview the victim. It’s not easy to share turf you’ve been working for years, let alone turn it over to someone else, but it’s classy and professional to get the information out to people with the authority to help while not turning your back on it entirely. It became apparent to all three of them that this was likely the work of the same man.

About a month later, with two detectives already looking for reassignment elsewhere, and with the tally up to twenty-four in the West Side Rapist investigation, the new Sex Crimes Unit needed help. Duvall
requested the temporary reassignment of Detective Matuszny. The bad news for him was he’d be working downtown without a partner. The good news was he still had an opportunity to nail this guy he’d been hunting for so long.

Looking for any new leads, Matuszny sent information on the rapist’s description and MO to police departments all around the country, asking in return for information on any similar rapes out there. This is the type of thing that I’d like to see computerized on a national level, as the FBI has been trying to do with its VICAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) for more than a dozen years. With proper funding and a mandatory case-reporting requirement from local investigators, each department would have at its fingertips the kind of information Matuszny had to jump through hoops even to look for.

Although the response was tremendous in terms of the volume of return teletypes and phone calls, nothing fit. He went back to following up further on local cases—the latest rape in particular—with one change in his investigating process: his new supervisor, Lieutenant Duvall, told him he was not to inspect any more suspect penises. By November, his report on the most recent case finished and with no new leads, Matuszny reluctantly knew it was time to pack it in and move on to other challenges. He then requested transfer back to the Second District and out of the Sex Crimes Unit, a transfer that was approved.

Just one month later, early in the morning of December 13, 1985, the rapist hit again, breaking into a home and assaulting a woman in the shower, raping her at knifepoint while forcing her to tell him she loved him, as if following a script. After terrorizing her and threatening to come back to kill her if she called the police, he warned her to look out for the hot curling iron she’d left warming up in the bathroom,
as though he were concerned that after all he’d done to her, she’d be hurt accidentally.

With this new case, Ed Gray and Andrea Zbydniewski were back on the investigation, although they were also busy with the rest of their caseload of child abuse and other rapes. This time, however, they might have a lead: a newspaper delivery boy had seen a man lurking around the area about a month earlier. The man had worn a ski mask, which he took off so he could smoke. The boy helped police work up a new composite, which looked a lot like the previous sketch of the West Side Rapist. He was also able to describe the UNSUB’s clothing. Gray and Zbydniewski circulated the new drawing, which led to more leads, but none of them panned out. In early February 1986, the police released a full-color sketch to the media and offered a $2,000 reward.

In late May, after months of apparent restraint, the rapist struck again, breaking into a first-floor apartment in North Olmsted just before five o’clock in the morning, surprising and raping one of the two young women who lived there while the other wasn’t home. North Olmsted was outside the jurisdiction of the Sex Crimes Unit. Investigating Detective Frank Viola had met with Matuszny two years before, and he recognized the MO of the West Side Rapist. In addition to branching out into potentially new territory, the subject seemed to be growing more sophisticated, as this victim related that he forced her to swallow his semen so it couldn’t show up as evidence. But the police were able to lift a partial fingerprint from a windowsill.

August 1986 saw an interesting development. A suspect was arrested in Arkansas. He’d previously lived on the West Side, not far from several of the rapes, and had left town after the composite sketch of the rapist appeared in the news. Arrested on an unrelated warrant, he came to the attention of authorities because
of his resemblance to the well-publicized composite. Although he did match the physical description of the rapist, he spoke with a Latino accent, which hadn’t been mentioned by any of the victims. He also had an alibi for most of the rapes and had another physical characteristic to support his claims of innocence: much of the time in question he’d spent with a broken foot, and none of the victims had mentioned a cast.

After a year of frustration, no leads, and theories that perhaps the rapist had moved out of the area (or maybe the latest victims hadn’t reported their assaults), there was another potential development. As she sipped her morning coffee in the kitchen, Betty Ocilka heard a sound outside her window and noticed a shadow suggestive of a man’s head. Ever ready with the gun she’d kept handy since her own attack, she pulled back the curtain to reveal a man standing there. Startled, she screamed, firing a shot at him as he ran away.

At the time, Matuszny and Gray thought it highly unlikely that it was the rapist, back for another look. This was not the first time Ocilka had called them, convinced she’d seen her rapist. After what she’d been through, it was understandable that she could still be traumatized by the assault.

But Gray had had enough. He asked Lieutenant Duvall for a transfer, which she turned down. In November of 1987, Police Chief Howard Rudolph—who lived near several of the West Side Rapist’s victims—expanded the responsibility and authority of the Scientific Investigations Unit, hoping that better handling of evidence would assist in case closure. Gray transferred to the unit.

After several months without a new case, the rapist kept the police busy during the holidays. On the morning of November 18, he entered the apartment
of a twenty-two-year-old woman who’d left the door open as she went to start a load of wash in the laundry room. Holding a knife to her throat, he forced her to perform oral sex, then raped her vaginally. After ejaculating on her stomach, he wiped off the evidence and threatened to return and kill her if she contacted the police, part of the West Side Rapist’s standard MO.

A few weeks later, he assaulted a twenty-seven-year-old woman in her fiancé’s home—just two blocks away from the home of the chief of police. As she wrapped Christmas presents and waited for her fiancé to come home, the rapist surprised her, grabbing her by the hair and clamping a hand over her mouth. She fought back with the scissors she’d been using for the gifts and screamed. Faced with a victim who fought back aggressively, the rapist grew more violent, punching her in the face over and over as he grabbed the scissors away from her. Then, threatening her with the scissors, he demanded money. She told him she only had $2 in her purse. He said he knew that but wanted whatever was in the house. Then he led her to the back door and told her to open it, presumably so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints behind. When she had trouble opening it, he forced her to undress, using the scissors to cut off her bra. He saw she was having her period and forced her to perform oral sex. Then, as Neff reports, he threatened, “If you call the police, you won’t have a Christmas.”

As 1988 began, the police were at a loss and pressure from the public continued to grow. In early March the rapist struck again. At first a woman just noticed him outside her first-floor apartment. She called the police, who found marks on the front door as though someone had been trying to pry it open. Then a few nights later, the same woman was awakened by a man in her bedroom, who she first thought
was her boyfriend. But then he climbed on top of her and threatened her with a knife. He cut her nightgown with his knife, then raped her.

It seems crazy that the rapist would return to a scene where he’d been thwarted by police just days earlier. Actually, though, this behavior is predictable of serial offenders, who grow more cocky with each “successful” venture. Much like other types of criminals who send letters to police or the media taking credit for their crimes, this rapist wanted to show the authorities he could outsmart them. They knew where he operated, but he could still get by them and take what he wanted. This type takes pride in his work, and ultimately it is this pride that, we hope, will lead to his downfall. Some, as we’ve already noted, even write letters.

One night during the summer of 1988, the rapist’s cockiness led him to make the kind of mistake the police were waiting for. After breaking into an apartment and raping the woman inside, the daughter of a Cleveland detective, he stole the victim’s bank card. Before he left, he demanded her password for the card and her telephone number. Then he made his usual threats about not calling the police.

This time, in addition to a victim-witness, the police had a lead. The card had been used at an ATM about five o’clock in the morning. A security camera had captured the transaction. The only problem was that between the rapist’s efforts to hide behind sunglasses and the poor resolution of the blurry, dark picture, it didn’t provide more than the composite sketch the police already had. All they could see was the lower part of his face, long, wavy hair, a cigarette, and the collar of a jeans jacket.

The Sex Crimes Unit immediately released the photo. The local TV networks featured the story, providing a phone number for tips. The first strong lead
came quickly. A woman called that night to report that she knew who the man in the photo was, knew where he worked, knew he owned a pair of sunglasses just like the ones in the photo, and provided his name. Police discovered that he lived near several of the rape locations; he worked near others. Armed with a search warrant, detectives waited anxiously until their suspect returned from work to arrest him. With support from the chief of police and Assistant County Prosecutor Tim McGinty, police then organized a lineup, but the West Side Rapist’s latest victim did not see her assailant there. The suspect was released—although they did get some hair samples so they could compare his DNA against evidence left at any future crime scene.

In November, a young woman was awakened in the early morning by unusual sounds in her apartment. Looking around, she saw a man masturbating outside her living room window, and he’d already removed the screen! She called the police immediately—her father was a captain on the force—but the man was gone by the time they got there. Since his behavior and description matched that of the West Side Rapist, police stepped up patrols of the neighborhood.

Even with the added security, one Saturday toward the end of the month the young woman was awakened by a man on top of her, holding a knife to her face. He called her by name and asked why she’d called the police, telling her she would not be hurt if she did what he instructed. She got a quick look at his face, covered by a nylon stocking, before he warned her to look away. He raped her, ejaculating on her stomach, then used her blanket to wipe up the evidence. Along with her money, he took her bank card and demanded her password. As he left, he warned he’d come back and murder her if she contacted the police again. She tried to call police immediately but found he’d cut the phone line, so she drove to her father’s police precinct.

Everyone was terribly frustrated that this guy had struck again—hell, not only did police have warning this time, the victim’s father was a cop! But the bank card offered a ray of hope. Sure enough, when sex crimes checked with the bank, they learned the card was used minutes after the rape and the transaction had been captured on camera. Because it took shots in three-second intervals, the police had a series of photos to review: the first was an outline of a long-haired man with a newspaper; the next showed him using the paper to block his face before he held the paper directly over the camera. After a few black photos, the last shot showed the man walking away from the camera: a look at his back as he walked to his car.

It didn’t seem a tremendous breakthrough, but Vic Kovacic, head of the Scientific Investigations Unit, thought perhaps they could use the technology at their disposal to get more out of it than originally appeared. The unit had a computer designed to analyze evidence such as photos, and it could clarify the image. They scanned in the picture and had the computer blow up the image, enhancing it to the point where they were able to identify the car in the photo by its right rear panel. According to their reference books, it was a dark Chevrolet Monte Carlo, model year 1975 or 1976. There was even visible damage that could further identify the vehicle. Soon the entire force had a description of the car, which, I was glad to hear, was consistent with our profile.

After years of hunting this guy, the police finally had something solid to work with. Yet we must never forget to factor in the element of luck. It can work to the advantage of the criminal. But it can work for us, too. On December 21, 1988, Vic Kovacic got lucky. After weeks of driving around the West Side looking for the suspect vehicle in his spare time, he stumbled upon it. The lot of a restaurant he was going to was
full, so he had to park in front of an apartment building next door. That was where he saw it: maroon Monte Carlo with the same rusted fender and pushed-in bumper shown in the bank photo. He took down the plate number and rushed back to his office.