Cops: DNA tests link rape suspect to Penn attacks
Philadelphia police said yesterday that DNA tests link two sexual assaults last year at the University of Pennsylvania to Domenique Thomas Wilson, a former Lock Haven University basketball player charged last week with similar assaults at that school in central Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia police said yesterday that DNA tests link two sexual assaults last year at the University of Pennsylvania to Domenique Thomas Wilson, a former Lock Haven University basketball player charged last week with similar assaults at that school in central Pennsylvania.
Capt. John Darby said that police had not filed an arrest warrant but that the investigation was ongoing. He said the DNA was not the only connection in the attacks.
Darby called the DNA link "a message to the bad guys."
"It's a significant instrument, but it's not the only thing we have," he said, citing similarities in the attacks.
Wilson, 23, who had played basketball at West Philadelphia High, is accused of staying four hours in the apartment of two Lock Haven students, during which, police allege, he raped them, then robbed them of ATM cards, cash and electronic devices.
Wilson's last known residence was on 51st Street below Warrington Avenue, in Kingsessing. In the Penn attacks, the assailant used one of his victims' credit cards at an ATM at 50th Street and Baltimore Avenue, Kingsessing.
Darby said police have a "blurred" security-camera image of Wilson at that ATM.
The two Philadelphia assaults took place in an apartment on Spruce Street in West Philly and a residence on Clinton Street in Center City, police said.
Two Penn students were "terrorized" Dec. 19 by an intruder who held them captive in their apartment for four hours, police said at the time. The man put duct tape over their eyes and mouths, cops said.
The first victim, 22, was leaving her off-campus apartment at 44th and Spruce streets when a man approached her in the hallway and forced her back inside at knifepoint, police said. Once inside the apartment, the man produced a handgun, threatened the woman, then bound her, police said.
About an hour later, the woman's 24-year-old roommate came home and also was bound by the man, who then sexually assaulted her, police said.
The assailant, who wore a black ski mask and black cotton gloves, did not sexually assault the first victim, police said. After four hours, he left with a laptop, two iPods, several cell phones, money and credit cards, cops said.
At the time, police said the same man was suspected in a similar incident Oct. 22 on Clinton Street near 10th, in Center City. In that case, a young woman and her boyfriend were accosted in the hallway of her apartment building by a knife-wielding man, who tied them up, sexually assaulted the woman and stayed in the apartment for hours.
John Wilson Jr., coach of Lock Haven's basketball team, said yesterday that he never had a problem with Wilson, a freshman walk-on during the 2004-05 season. "He appeared in six games and averaged six minutes," the coach said.
Pat Cassano, athletic director at West Philly High, said she remembered Wilson but recalled no problems.
Wilson reportedly tried to escape Friday from the Clinton County Correctional Facility, where he has been held since his arrest Feb. 18 in the assaults at Lock Haven.
Wilson is being held under suicide watch, authorities said.
