A 37-year-old man was arrested Wednesday in connection with a series of recent sexual assaults targeting women in Center City.
Police identified Dynel Walker as a wanted suspect in the case Wednesday morning; several hours later, he was apprehended outside a Sam’s Club in Willow Grove.
Walker is accused of assaulting at least six women between July 18 and Aug. 3. The incidents were reported in the Rittenhouse Square, Center City and Graduate Hospital areas.
Officials initially connected Walker to five attacks. A woman came forward Monday after news about the spree came out to say she had also been targeted the day before while leaving a bar in the area of 17th and Lombard streets, investigators said.
PPD Captain Margo Alleyne-Parker, commander of the department’s Special Victims Unit, said Wednesday that she thinks other women may have been attacked, and she encouraged any other victims to come forward.
Detectives believe the same person committed all of the offenses because of the similarity of the assaults, the description of the offender provided by victims and geographical proximity, law enforcement officials said earlier this week.
In each case, a man approached a woman from behind and groped her, though “things may have went a little further” in some instances, Alleyne-Parker told reporters during a briefing Monday.
Authorities took Walker into custody two days after holding a news conference about the cases and releasing surveillance images. Alleyne-Parker said a tipster provided his name based on the images.
Walker has more than 20 prior arrests, Alleyne-Parker added, and court records suggest he is currently on probation. Walker was sentenced to five years of court supervision after a 2023 guilty plea for identity theft and receiving stolen property in Montgomery County.
