The police in Philadelphia, PA, believe they have finally apprehended the infamous Fairmount Park rapist, a serial rapist and murderer who terrorized the city and eluded law enforcement for decades.
Over the weekend, the cops arrested 46-year-old Elias Diaz on suspicion of attempted murder on the Pennypack Park trail in Northeast Philadelphia.
The arrest followed three slashing incidents in November, where an individual riding a bike, believed to be Diaz, attacked parkgoers with a large knife or machete. Thankfully, no one was killed in these attacks.
Once the cops identified Diaz, they fingered him for the 2003 rape and murder of Rebecca Park and a series of four rapes from 2003 to 2007.
The rape victims were all walking or running alone in Fairmount Park when they were attacked and raped by a man with a knife.
One of the victims managed to fight him off but suffered multiple stab wounds.
Elias Diaz suspected of the murder of Rebecca Park
Rebecca Park was a 30-year-old medical student who went for a run in the park and never returned. Her half-naked remains were discovered four days later; she had been strangled.
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The case haunted the Philadelphia Police Dept. for nearly two decades, and during that time, all they knew was they were looking for a Hispanic male about 5″8′ with bushy eyebrows and a widow’s peak.
But they finally got a breakthrough in 2021 when they sent the perpetrator’s DNA to a genealogy database and identified him as Elias Diaz.
Cops expect to charge Elias Diaz with murder and rape
The cops interviewed 100s of Diaz’s relatives throughout the US and Puerto Rico, but he had become estranged from his family, and some relatives thought he might be dead. The police suspect Diaz has been living homeless in the city all this time.
So far, Diaz has been charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault from the slashing attacks in November.
However, Joanne Pescatore from the DA Office said on Tuesday that she expects Diaz to be charged “with murder and related offenses with regard to the homicide of Rebecca Park that dates back to 2003. I fully anticipate that we will have the results of the DNA before [Tuesday] is out.”
On Tuesday, Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford Jr told reporters, “Everything we have at this point leads us to believe that Mr. Diaz is also involved, or a person of interest, regarding the murder of Rebecca Park, which occurred in July of 2003, as well as possibly two or three other sexual assaults.”
Stanford added that the case “haunted people in this community. It haunted people in this department.”