A timeline of the search for the Fairmount Park rapist
Philadelphia Police followed hundreds of tips and tested dozens of people's DNA over 20 years, reaching countless dead ends, until now.
Between 2003 and 2007, an unidentified man sexually assaulted four women at knifepoint, killing one, and left many in Philadelphia afraid to run or walk through Fairmount and Pennypack Parks. The so-called Fairmount Park rapist evaded police for 20 years despite drawing national attention, including being featured on America’s Most Wanted in 2005.
Now, police believe Elias Diaz, 46, a man they arrested Sunday for allegedly slashing people with a machete in Pennypack Park, is also responsible for the Fairmount Park assaults two decades ago.
» READ MORE: Fairmount Park rapist identified after 20 years, police sources say
A second set of DNA tests was expected to confirm Diaz’s role in those attacks Tuesday night, Interim Police Commissioner John Stanford Jr. said, and prosecutors said they would approve charges for murder, rape, and additional offenses.
Here’s a recap of the 20-year investigation into the Fairmount Park assaults.
When did the attacks start?
The first of the reported victims was a 21-year-old woman who went jogging near Kelly Drive around 10:30 p.m. in April 2003. She was raped at knifepoint.
Three months later, Rebecca Park, a medical student at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, went for a jog around 4 p.m., not to be heard from. Four days later, she was found raped and strangled in a shallow grave in West Fairmount Park.
In October 2003, a third jogger was attacked at knifepoint around 6:15 p.m. Police said the 37-year-old fought the man off, suffering stab wounds in the neck, chest, and hand.
After that fight, it would be four years before a similar assault was reported to police. In 2007, a 29-year-old woman reported being raped and robbed by a man with a similar description in Pennypack Park while out for a walk.
What was known about the rapist at the time?
Surviving victims described a 5-foot-8, muscular man to authorities, helping craft a widely circulated composite sketch. Victims said their attacker had black hair and bushy eyebrows, wore a hoop earring in his left ear, and rode away on a purple bicycle after at least two of the attacks.
Victims also said the suspect looked Latino and he’d told one victim he had siblings in Puerto Rico and that he was lonely.
What was the investigation like at the time?
Police came under immense scrutiny after the 2003 murder of Rebecca Park when it was revealed that authorities had not informed the public when a jogger was first raped in the park, months earlier. Afterward, police reported following hundreds of leads, though none led them to their suspect.
Some residents drew comparisons to Troy Graves, an Air Force airman also known as the “Center City Rapist,” who attacked five women between 1997 and 1999 in Philadelphia and killed Wharton student Shannon Schieber in her apartment in 1998. He was caught in Colorado in 2001 amid a series of similar rapes using DNA evidence. Schieber’s family condemned police for failing to alert the public of the prior assaults in Center City.
DNA evidence in the Fairmount Park rapes linked the attacker to all three assaults from 2003, police said. Police tested dozens of suspects by 2004, but never found a match.
A more than $25,000 reward put together by the Daily News, the Citizens Crime Commission, and other groups was similarly unsuccessful in leading to an arrest.
A 2005 America’s Most Wanted episode endeavored to draw attention to the case. The show also purchased billboards across the city with the rapist’s composite to no avail.
Police distributed the suspect’s description to Spanish-language media outlets, and in 2004, a man who resembled the composite sketch was arrested in Puerto Rico, though DNA evidence cleared him of the attacks.
Despite the barrage of dead ends, police looked to renew awareness of the case in 2021, using DNA phenotypic analysis to predict the assailant’s physical characteristics at 25, 40, and 60.
» READ MORE: What helped ID Joseph Augustus Zarelli? His mother’s family dabbles in genetic genealogy.
Later, police used genetic genealogy to try to find the rapist. They hoped they could make some progress the way they did in the Joseph Augustus Zarelli case, also known as the “Boy in the Box,” before he was identified. In that case, police were able to find relatives of the boy using his DNA.
Diaz’s name was one of the leads Philly police said they found using genetic genealogy, but at the time, authorities didn’t know where to find him or whether he was alive. Police said there were also no clear connections to the Philly area at the time they came across Diaz’s name, and his family tree produced relatives across the country.
» READ MORE: Philly police release new sketches of the ‘Fairmount Park rapist,’ who is linked to four attacks, one murder
Who is Elias Diaz?
Police said they arrested Diaz in 2007 and that he failed to appear in court in 2015 in connection to that case, but they did not have his DNA on file.
Police arrested Diaz Sunday, charging him with attempted murder, aggravated assault, and related crimes. Authorities say Diaz attacked two people in Pennypack Park in late-November wielding a machete while on his bike. A third person said they encountered an aggressive man on a bike during that period but managed to escape unharmed.
Much remains unknown of Diaz, including his whereabouts over the past 20 years. Police said they received information that led them to a shelter they believe Diaz used in Pennypack Park, where they collected evidence.
What happens now?
Police said they could have confirmation of a DNA match between Diaz and the 2000s crime scenes as early as this week.
District Attorney Larry Krasner encouraged any witnesses to Diaz’s alleged crimes or additional victims to step forward and report assaults. He said people could call 911, Women Organized Against Rape at 215-985-3333, or Women Against Abuse at 215-686-7082.