Police investigate new attack in Kensington

Police believe that a man who assaulted a woman Monday in Kensington may be the same person who attacked two women in the neighborhood in October.

This morning's attack took place around 2 a.m. at Kensington Avenue and East Sergeant Street, where a woman told police she was hit on the head with a brick, police said. The assailant also tried to stab her with a pair of scissors, police said, but she was able to grab the scissors from him and he ran away.

The attack took place at the same corner where another woman was raped and strangled into unconsciousness in October, police said.

The description of this attacker matches that of the man described by that woman, as well as another woman who experienced a similar attack that month.

Police in the meantime are investigating a possible link between the strangulation deaths of two women in Kensington in November and the death of Allison Edwards, 22, who was strangled in a Juniata Park apartment over the weekend.

Another woman has told police investigating the string of assaults in Kensington, including the two fatal attacks, that she was sexually assaulted in late October at the corner of Kensington Avenue and East Sargeant Street by a man she had willingly accompanied. She told police her attacker choked her into unconsciousness.

She and the survivor of another assault in early October in the same area have described their assailant as a slender, light-skinned black or Latino man in his late 20s who stands between 5-foot-6 and 5-foot-10, and has a mark on his cheek and a goatee.

The man involved in today's attack was wearing a dark, puffy coat with a dark sweatshirt and faded black jeans. He was listening to a white iPod and told the woman his name was Anthony, police said.