A 37-year-old man was arrested for a string of sexual assaults in Center City, police said
Police said Dynel Walker was taken into custody in connection with six attacks in Center City and South Philadelphia in the past three weeks.
A Northeast Philadelphia man was arrested Wednesday after police said he committed a string of sexual assaults in Center City over the last month, attacking women as they walked or entered their homes.
Dynel Walker, 37, of the 13000 block of Philmont Avenue in Somerton, was taken into custody in Montgomery County to face multiple counts of aggravated assault, indecent assault, and false imprisonment in connection with assaults on six women within three weeks in Center City and the Schuylkill section of South Philadelphia, police said.
Capt. Margo Alleyne-Parker of the Special Victims Unit said she believed Walker likely attacked additional women who had not yet come forward.
Walker’s arrest comes just days after police had asked for the public’s help in identifying a man responsible for a rash of assaults, and whose behavior was escalating. An anonymous tipster then told police that Walker resembled the photo officials had released of the suspect.
Detectives compared photos of Walker at the scene to footage recovered from two of the attacks, and earlier this week, she said, four of the victims positively identified Walker as the assailant.
Walker was arrested outside of a Sam’s Club in Horsham, she said.
When planning his attacks, she said, Walker would see women walking alone, then begin to follow them.
The first victim, according to police, was walking her dog near 19th and Spruce Streets around 6:40 a.m. on July 18, when a man approached her.
“Good morning, beautiful,” said the man, according to police. He then assaulted the woman and fled as she screamed.
The next day, around 3:15 a.m., police said, a woman was entering her apartment near 21st and Delancey Streets when a man approached her and sexually assaulted her. She tried to fight back, police said, and he pushed her, causing her to injure her elbow and knee. The man fled as she screamed for help, police said.
Two weeks later, on Aug. 2, a woman was walking on the 1600 block of Waverly Street at 8:15 a.m. when a man came up from behind and sexually assaulted her.
The following day, a man matching the same description attacked another woman, this time on the 400 block of South 15th Street. The woman was walking down 15th Street around 1 a.m. when the man grabbed her from behind and assaulted her. The woman fought back and was able to escape, police said.
Less than 12 hours later, police said the man again grabbed a woman from behind as she opened the door to her garage on the 2500 block of Webster Street around 12:30 p.m. She screamed and he fled, police said.
All the women gave similar descriptions of their attacker, describing him as Black, close to or around 6 feet tall, with long dreadlocks or twists or braids, sometimes worn in a ponytail, said Alleyne-Parker.
After police warned the public about the attacks, she said, a sixth victim came forward and said she was walking home from a bar around 2 a.m. on Aug. 3 when a man approached her and said, “I want to touch you.”
He then pushed her against a car and sexually assaulted her, Alleyne-Parker said. The woman was able to escape and run to safety, she said.
Court records show that Walker has been arrested multiple times over the last decade in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs, albeit for relatively low-level crimes.
Between 2011 and 2016, he was in and out of jail in Philadelphia for charges including drug possession and improper use of a motor vehicle, according to the records.
In Bucks County in 2021, he was convicted of disorderly conduct. And most recently, in Montgomery County in 2023, he pleaded guilty to identity theft and receiving stolen property, and was sentenced to five years’ probation.