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Police Sketch Hit
"A Serial Rapist"

The Stuyvesant Town Rapist

Excerpt from

"The Police Composite Sketch "

by Stephen Mancusi

Sometime in 1994 a woman comes home from work in the Stuyvesant Town neighborhood in lower Manhattan. This is an apartment complex consisting of a many buildings. It is not generally known as a dangerous area. She is an intelligent business woman in her thirties. It is late afternoon, but still light outside. She enters her building, goes up on the elevator and walks down her hallway to her apartment. She feels. She is in the safest place she could be. As she approaches the door to her apartment, she is unaware that there is an unknown man inside. He had broken into her apartment earlier through a window. As she entered, the man attacks her. He rapes and sexually assaults her. This is not an isolated incident. This suspect has attacked before. He is a serial rapist that has committed similar crimes in Manhattan on other occasions. However this victim was the first to get a direct look at the front of his face. A sexual crime in New York City is handled by the Special Victim Squad of the NYPD’s Detective Bureau. In the normal course of their investigation, they contact the artist unit to have a composite sketch prepared. The appointment was a couple days after the attack. I get the preliminary information about the case prior to the detective and victim arriving. I am told the particulars of the incident and the suspect was a serial rapist. The assigned detective felt this victim got a good look at the suspect. They arrive at my office located in One Police Plaza just across the street from city hall. A standard composite session is conducted with the victim. The victim works closely with me throughout the session. The session continues normally and a sketch is completed. The victim is satisfied with the outcome of the sketch and feels there is a good likeness to the perpetrator. (Figure 8) The detective received a couple of photographs of the sketch and some zerox copies. It wasn’t until a much later that the Printing Section was able to reproduce the sketch on a wanted poster. The poster was distributed throughout the department, ultimately hanging on a wall in some police precincts of interest. As luck has it, one day an assistant district attorney in New York was in one of these precincts on other business. She sees the wanted poster and recognizes the sketch as her half brother Antony. This is another important term the keep in mind. The ADA recognized the subject of the sketch. Through a courageous act, she immediately informs the Special Victim’s Squad of this realization and gives the detective this significant lead in this case. (Figure 9) Anthony resides in Florida. He had been arrested years earlier in Florida for rape and was released only a few months before. At about the same time the Stuyvesant Town Rapist started his crime spree here in New York. The detectives of the Special Victims Squad with their diligent work were able to ascertain and develop a case with the available evidence against Anthony. They arrest Anthony at his Florida home. He was later identified by the victim during a line up. He went on trail. He was convicted first degree rape and received 20 to 40 years in prison. When sentenced, the judge in the case noted that this convicted suspect’s sole purpose in life seems to be to rape, sodomize and terrorize woman. This perpetrator had the attitude that it was his right to commit these crimes.

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Stephen Mancusi

smancusi@forartist.com

© 2000 Forensic Artist S.Mancusi All Rights Reserved
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