The Red and Black

GET THE TAG NUMBER!

The headline said there was a van, like the 2 abductions. But the article only mentions a brown car in this incident. So which was it?

The guy obviously has switched cars due to the publicity. We shouldn't be only weary of a "van" we should be on the look out for anything suspicious.

Here's what the Banner-Herald reported on Saturday, no mention of a van:


Student: Offered ride, grabbed
Serial predator now may be driving car

MULTIMEDIADOCUMENT:
Read copies of some of the police reports filed in this investigation:
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By Joe Johnson | Staff Writer | Story updated at 10:59 PM on Saturday, October 20, 2007
A serial predator who has targeted young women in downtown Athens may have changed his methods.
A University of Georgia student said a man offered her a ride, then followed her home early Thursday and fondled her as he tried to get into her apartment.
"He caressed my hair at one point, put his foot in the door and tried to grab my hip," said 20-year-old Natalie, who asked to be identified only by her first name.
Athens-Clarke police suspect the man may be the same person who has preyed on women downtown by offering them free rides home, but instead abducted them and raped one.
The man who accosted Natalie fits the general description of the man in earlier assaults, though he drove a car and the man in previous attacks had a van.
Police think the predator may have changed tactics, opting for a car since he knows police are on the lookout for a white passenger van. They also believe the most recent report may show a dangerous shift in the man's behavior.
"This one I have more concern with because of the way it happened, because the guy was bold enough to knock on the door and try to go into (the student's) apartment," Athens-Clarke police Capt. Clarence Holeman said. "This is something we take very seriously."
The man apparently left the student's North Avenue apartment complex because he was scared off by a roommate who came out of her bedroom to see what the commotion was, Natalie said.
Natalie said she and three friends were walking home from downtown at about 2 a.m. when a man in a large, dark, boxy car pulled alongside and offered them a ride home. The women told the man they were nearly home already, and he drove off.
Natalie's friends went to their apartments on one side of Whistlebury Condominiums while she went to hers on the other.
"Five minutes later, this guy was at my door saying he wanted to make sure I got home all right," she said.
Natalie knew about the previous assaults on women, but she didn't think of that at the time, she said.
"I just thought it was a random, creepy, squirrelly kind of guy," she said.
The man tried to talk his away into Natalie's condo by saying he was cold, kept his foot in the door so she couldn't close it and tried to kiss her, Natalie said.
"He also grabbed her arm very gently and had told her this is the first time that he has ever really (gone) after a girl," the officer who responded to Natalie's 911 call wrote in a report. "She said that he acted like he was real shy but he surprised her with his forcefulness."
Natalie said the man kept asking if a boyfriend lived with her, and left when her roommate appeared.
"Finally (my roommate) came out of her bedroom and was like, what is going on?" she said.
Natalie called 911 when the man left.
She didn't realize she may have dodged a danger until the lead detective in the van assault case paid her a visit Friday morning.
"I didn't even think about it until then," Natalie said.
The man who followed Natalie home was dressed all in black, including a "golf type" shirt and long, baggy shorts.
Earlier in the week, another UGA student reported she was crossing South Milledge Avenue at about 3 a.m. when a man in a white van asked her if she needed a ride, police said.
The woman ran and called 911, according to police, who said they doubted the man was the one they've been looking for, but hadn't ruled out the possibility. She described the van as an older, "boxy" van with a bad paint job, while the one driven in earlier assaults was a late-model passenger van with rows of seats.
Police became aware of the predator the weekend of the Sept. 8 football game between UGA and the University of South Carolina, when a woman accepted a ride from what she thought was a ride service, but instead was driven to a remote location in Oglethorpe County. She escaped when the man parked.
News reports prompted a UGA student to admit she'd been kidnapped by a man in a white van and brought to the same Oglethorpe location where she was raped.
A third woman came forward to tell police she fled from a similar white van in May.
The suspect in the September assaults is described as a white man between 20 and 30 years old, 5 feet, 8 inches to 5 feet, 11 inches tall, weighing 150 to 190 pounds, with a medium build and short brown hair.
The description is consistent to how Natalie and a neighbor who witnessed the encounter at Whistlebury Condominiums described the man.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 102007

At the risk of getting on my soapbox.. This guy can easily be caught with the right amount of surveilance or even better, a sting. Instead of trying to crack down on 19 and 20y/o kids drinking and having a good time, the Athens PD needs to put its resources together to get this psycho before someone gets hurt or even worse. Come on, he's most likely a less than intelligent guy with mental problems riding around in a van in the same 1 mile radius between downtown and North Avenue. He's not exactly covering his tracks. How hard can it be?