Authorities believe a man arrested earlier this week in connection with two machete slashings in Pennypack Park is the Fairmount Park rapist, an attacker responsible for a 2003 homicide and a series of sexual assaults.
Elias Diaz, 46, could be charged with the murder of 30-year-old Rebecca Park – a medical student and Army reservist who was raped and strangled – as soon as Tuesday night or early Wednesday, representatives from the Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney’s Office said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
Officials indicated that they were still awaiting DNA results confirming Diaz’s ties to the killing and two other sexual assaults, both of which occurred over a decade ago.
Diaz’s name came up earlier this year using genealogical methods similar to what investigators employed to identify the 1957 ‘Boy in the Box’ as 4-year-old Joseph Augustus Zarelli last year, Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said.
But Vanore told reporters that police did not know where Diaz lived, or whether he was still alive. Pennsylvania court documents show a minimal criminal history.
Detectives think Diaz was most recently living in a makeshift shelter in a section of Pennypack Park behind Lincoln High School in Mayfair, Vanore said.
He was apprehended Sunday morning in the park after someone called authorities to report a man with a machete attached to his bicycle.
Earlier this month, PPD held a news conference to discuss a pair of machete attacks that had occurred in the park, leaving two people injured.
On Nov. 22, a jogger said a man on a bicycle slashed him multiple times on his arms and hands while on the Pennypack Trail near the 2800 block of Holme Avenue, investigators said.
Two days later, a couple walking in the park, near the 2800 block of Winchester Avenue, reported a similar incident, police said.
Investigators said a third person came forward Dec. 6 to tell police they encountered an agitated, aggressive man on a black BMX-style bike on the trail Nov. 25. That person was not injured.
The public defender’s association, which is representing Diaz in the Pennypack slashings, declined to comment on the case or his alleged connection to the Fairmount Park attacks.
In April 2003, a 21-year-old jogger was sexually assaulted while running along Kelly Drive. Park went missing in July of that year, and her body was found days later in a wooded area near the 3500 block of Conshohocken Avenue.
Four years later, in August 2007, a man raped a 25-year-old woman in Pennypack near Frankford and Solly avenues. DNA evidence for the offender matched in all three cases, according to the PPD.
Vanore said a fourth incident occurred in October 2003, when a suspect matching the Fairmount Park rapist’s description attempted to drag a woman toward the edge of the Schuylkill River. She escaped without any physical injuries.
“One message to victims and the family of victims that are out there: We don’t stop,” Police Commissioner John Stanford said Tuesday. “We don’t stop until we’re able to get people in custody for the crimes that are committed against individuals.”
District Attorney Larry Krasner encouraged any other possible victims to call 911; contact Women Organized Against Rape at 215-985-3333; or call Woman Against Abuse at 215-686-7082.
