Police worry there might be a serial groper in South Seattle after another woman was attacked Wednesday night.
A woman was standing outside of her apartment near 36th Avenue and South Oregon Street at around 9:30 p.m. when she heard someone running up the stairs behind her, according to police.
Before she could react, the woman said a masked man grabbed her, put his hand over her mouth and told her to be quiet. He then groped the woman until she fell down and screamed for help, at which time the man ran away.
A female neighbor heard the screams and called 911, but officers and a K9 unit were unable to locate the man.
The neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said she was shocked to hear the screams.
“We heard her scream,” she said. “She was so frantic that we couldn’t understand what she was saying.”
The victim said the attacker was roughly 5’10″ tall and had a thin build. He was wearing a brown jacket, black pants and a mask.
Sexual Assault Unit detectives are now investigating the case and trying to determine if there’s a link between this recent attack and a string of South Seattle gropings in December.
In those cases, a masked man crept up on women outside of their homes, grabbed them and ran away when they fought back. Victims in those incidents said the attacker was a black man in his late teens or 20s who stood roughly 5’9″ tall and weighed 140-160 pounds. The man wore a black ski mask, a black or blue coat or hooded sweatshirt and black or dark blue cargo pants.
If you have any information about these incidents, please contact the Seattle Police Department’s Sexual Assault Unit at (206) 684-5575.
