Attack on Asian woman ends lull

By Graham Buck

July 21, 2000 Web posted at: 3:49 PM EDT (1949 GMT)

In this story: Victim recognized attacker Investigation intensifies RELATED STORIES

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Illinois (Daily Herald) -- Wednesday's attack on a Japanese woman in Arlington Heights unfolded just like the other eight assaults in the past 15 weeks. A young woman home alone in the middle of the day opened her door to a man posing as a government worker. He then started beating her.

But Wednesday's incident may have yielded the case's biggest break and could lead to the arrest of the man who has been preying on Asian women in Chicago and the North and Northwest suburbs.

Police now are looking for a late-model green mid-sized, four-door car with a license plate beginning with C and containing the numbers 7, 8, and 2. A green car with gold hub caps was spotted near the site of the June 12 attack in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago.

The ninth and latest attack ends a five-week lull in the series of sexual and physical assaults that have happened since April 7 in Chicago, Mount Prospect, Niles, Skokie, Morton Grove and Northfield Township.

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"This incident breathes new life into the whole investigation," said Niles police Cmdr. Daniel Halley. "Our guys had been beating bushes trying to get everything they can."

"We'll be pouncing on this," he said.

Police are searching for one man in the series of attacks. In each incident the man has gained entry into victims' homes by impersonating a police officer, an FBI agent, a Census worker and now an immigration officer.

The latest attack occurred at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Lincoln Square Apartments on the 2300 block of S. Goebbert Road. The 25-year-old victim was alone in her second-floor apartment waiting for the delivery of a package. When her doorbell rang, she assumed it was the delivery and went down to the foyer area of her apartment block, police said.

She opened the secured stairwell door leading to the front foyer to find a man who identified himself as an immigration agent and said he was there to check the status of her visa, police said.The woman knew her visa was current and, when she suddenly recognized the man's face from a wanted poster she recently saw at the nearby Mitsuwa Marketplace, turned and tried to run back upstairs, police said. But the man caught her and began to beat her over the head with a blunt object.

"It was more than a glancing blow," Arlington Heights police Sgt. Jeffrey W. DuFloth said. "He beat her several times and she was bleeding rather profusely."

The woman started screaming and managed to fight off the man, who then fled. The woman was later taken to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, where she was in good condition Thursday.

Arlington Heights police are trying to figure out how the attacker selected his latest victim. The woman, who had been living in the country for about three years, had just moved with her fiance a few weeks ago into the Arlington Heights apartment, police said.

"That's the big secret," DuFloth said. "How does this guy choose his victims?"

Arlington Heights police said they were unaware there were many Asians living at the Lincoln Square Apartments.

"Quite frankly, we were a little bit surprised," DuFloth said. "As we were doing a neighborhood canvas we noticed there were a lot of Oriental-type names on the mail boxes."

More than 4,000 of the village's 81,000 residents are of Asian descent. Awareness in the Asian community about the attacks continues to be high even though it had been more than five weeks since the last attack.

"The victim realized this was the guy right away," DuFloth said. "I think it had helped that she had seen those fliers so recently."

Mount Prospect police officer William A. Roscop said he thought the lull between incidents meant that heavy press coverage of the past few attacks had driven the suspect away, or at least underground. When Roscop got word of the latest attack, it bothered him.

"We're basically being challenged by this man," Roscop continued. "Who's the better man, me the police officer or you the offender?"

Since Wednesday's attack, the Arlington Heights police department has assigned a team of 10 investigators to work on the case. Officers have already been going door to door at the apartment complex handing out police fliers with a composite sketch of the attacker.

The victim's description of her attacker matches those from other attacks. Police are working with the victim to create a composite sketch from the latest attack.

The man is described as about 6 feet tall, 210 to 225 pounds, with short curly black hair. In Wednesday's attack, the victim said the man was wearing sunglasses, a blue dress shirt, dark blue dress pants, with a black backpack slung over his shoulder.

Roscop said every cop in the state wants to be the one who arrests the suspect.

"Right now there's not a police officer worth his badge that doesn't want to make this arrest," Roscop said. "Right now, catching this guy would be like hitting that game winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to win the World Series."

Police departments continue to welcome leads and tips. The Cook County sheriff's police so far has investigated 486 calls to its tip line.

"We know the guy's out there and he's a Chicago-area resident," FBI agent/spokesman Frank Bochte said. "Somebody knows him, someone is his next door neighbor. We hope someone will call us."

The Taiwanese American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Chicago, the FBI and two Chinese businessmen in Chicago are offering rewards totaling $30,000 for information leading to the arrest of the man. Anyone with information can call the sheriff's police tip line at (800) 458-1002.

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