GUILTY TX - Haruka Weiser, 18, found murdered, UT-Austin campus, 3 April 2016 *Arrest*

[tlcya]

Haruka Weiser, 18, a first-year Theater and Dance student, has been tentatively identified as the victim, according to university officials.

"Haruka was a beloved member of our dance community, liked and admired by her classmates and respected by professors for her intelligence and spirit," according to a statement released by University President Gregory Fenves.

Weiser was recruited from her hometown in Portland, Ore., more than two years ago when she performed at the National High School Dance Festival.

http://www.people.com/article/university-texas-murder-victim-identified-haruka-weiser

 

[fhc]

https://twitter.com/keyetv

released a bad video picture of suspect with bicycle

 

[CHEL]

Police release video of suspect.

[video=twitter;718147111750144000]https://twitter.com/fox7austin/status/718147111750144000[/video]

 

[wfgodot]

Austin Statesman, with updates:

Person of interest sought in death of UT freshman Haruka Weiser

 

[tiffay01]

This is so extremely sad, we recently toured this facility with my 17 year old son. He is wanting to attend when he graduates. I can say the campus gave off nothing but a secure and safe campus. May she rest in peace, her poor family.

 

[SpanishInquisition]

As a matter of reference here is an explanation of where the events occurred using campus building names:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2016-04-07/body-in-waller-creek-identified/
And these can be matched to the campus grid map happening around D3 where she was heading from there to her dorm at E3 (Prather):
http://www.utexas.edu/commencement/2003/spring/map_campus.html
And here's an aerial map of the area as well:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/S...2!3m1!1s0x8644b59b0108c209:0x43ee586832fb4566
Plus here is a street view, where you can see how quickly you'd disappear once you got off the road and went down to the creek:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/S...0x8644b59b0108c209:0x43ee586832fb4566!6m1!1e1

 

[BrownRice]

This is so horrible. She is so beautiful. My heart aches for her family.

 

[joejoet]

I live right here in Austin and my wife takes a class at UT. There has been many rape cases here recently. Most of them occur at parks where people are walking. We were at the point where they were getting to be weekly. Everyone is under the assumption there has been 1 serial rapist. The suspect was never caught. There have been no attacks in the past few weeks and now this happened. Most of the attacks, the attacker held a knife to the victims throat during the rape and then let them go afterwards. Last time one of the attacks happened the police descended on the area and surrounded the perimeter but they never found the guy. I'm thinking it is possible he was almost caught so now he turned to killing to give him time to escape. I have no idea if these cases are related or not but I wanted to point them out because most of you wouldn't be aware of this probably.

 

[SpanishInquisition]

I live right here in Austin and my wife takes a class at UT. There has been many rape cases here recently. Most of them occur at parks where people are walking. We were at the point where they were getting to be weekly. Everyone is under the assumption there has been 1 serial rapist. The suspect was never caught. There have been no attacks in the past few weeks and now this happened. Most of the attacks, the attacker held a knife to the victims throat during the rape and then let them go afterwards. Last time one of the attacks happened the police descended on the area and surrounded the perimeter but they never found the guy. I'm thinking it is possible he was almost caught so now he turned to killing to give him time to escape. I have no idea if these cases are related or not but I wanted to point them out because most of you wouldn't be aware of this probably.

Now that you've said this, it sounds very much like it could be the same person as that suspect is approximately the same height, LE warned the suspect could escalate and they operate in public but empty places where they've approached their victims from behind with a knife to their throat to silence them:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2016-02-19/string-of-sexual-assaults-terrorizes-north-austin/
The only difference in descriptions is on race, but there could be a number of reasons for that, especially since the victims didn't see their attacker.

 

[fhc]

This is so extremely sad, we recently toured this facility with my 17 year old son. He is wanting to attend when he graduates. I can say the campus gave off nothing but a secure and safe campus. May she rest in peace, her poor family.

These rapes in the Austin Chronicle were nowhere near UT campus. My son will graduate from UT next month and has spent many hours on campus and has never had a bad experience, quite the contrary, he has really enjoyed and thrived in his classes/on campus.

 

[joejoet]

These rapes in the Austin Chronicle were nowhere near UT campus. My son will graduate from UT next month and has spent many hours on campus and has never had a bad experience, quite the contrary, he has really enjoyed and thrived in his classes/on campus.

Some were 15 minutes away, some were 20 minutes away. I don't know of any that were further away than that. Generally speaking though, this is probably the safest city I have lived in.

 

[LonghornSpeakEasy]

These rapes in the Austin Chronicle were nowhere near UT campus. My son will graduate from UT next month and has spent many hours on campus and has never had a bad experience, quite the contrary, he has really enjoyed and thrived in his classes/on campus.

I was thinking the same thing. Most of them were in northwest Austin. I suppose the perpetrator could have moved to campus but I'm not so sure.

Meanwhile I'm shocked by this. My husband and I attended UT and he, in fact, proposed to me around 32 years ago a few yards away from this scene (at the top of the circle marked 23rd street on the map). Just a year ago we took a photo at the same spot with our son after his graduation from the master's program in economics.

 

[mrsu]

So sad. She seemed like such a beautiful vibrant gal. I too have looked at the maps and while there does seem to be some cover from trees, this all seems to take place in an area less than a city block. What kind of walkway is this...paved? Enough room for several people to fit? Just a short cut? Is it well traveled? If the video is actually the perpetrator, it suggests this all happened in a relatively short period of time. If she was last seen at 9:30pm on Sunday and the video was around 11:30pm with him just casually walking about, seems he had a plan of action. I just don't get it. If the motivation was rape, why kill her? I wonder if she knew the attacker? Also, there must be more video of the suspect, otherwise how do they determine he's the one, when there are others going thru the video as well. And why is he still in the area 2 hours later?

 

[LonghornSpeakEasy]

I wonder how they know the bike is red or pink if the video footage is in black and white? Am I missing some footage?

 

[Inthedetails]

I wonder how they know the bike is red or pink if the video footage is in black and white? Am I missing some footage?

Apparently the POI was seen earlier in the day on campus:

"Police showed surveillance footage of a suspect in the slaying — a man seen riding a woman's bicycle alone on campus, in a desolate area near the stadium. Police said he was on school grounds for several hours Sunday, and caught on camera about an hour after the last sighting of Weiser.

Police described the person of interest as a 6-foot tall black man with an athletic build. He had on a backpack in the video footage."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ka-weiser-identified-victim-article-1.2592013

 

[LonghornSpeakEasy]

So sad. She seemed like such a beautiful vibrant gal. I too have looked at the maps and while there does seem to be some cover from trees, this all seems to take place in an area less than a city block. What kind of walkway is this...paved? Enough room for several people to fit? Just a short cut? Is it well traveled? If the video is actually the perpetrator, it suggests this all happened in a relatively short period of time. If she was last seen at 9:30pm on Sunday and the video was around 11:30pm with him just casually walking about, seems he had a plan of action. I just don't get it. If the motivation was rape, why kill her? I wonder if she knew the attacker? Also, there must be more video of the suspect, otherwise how do they determine he's the one, when there are others going thru the video as well. And why is he still in the area 2 hours later?

I never personally walked through this area while at UT as my classes were all on the other side of campus. I will ask my husband when he gets home.

On the local news right now (KEYE-TV) they indicated that she was last seen at 9:30-9:45 on Sunday night and her body was not discovered until Tuesday after a search was begun. That would make me think either the path is not well-travelled or her body was hidden.

 

[LonghornSpeakEasy]

Apparently the POI was seen earlier in the day on campus:

"Police showed surveillance footage of a suspect in the slaying — a man seen riding a woman's bicycle alone on campus, in a desolate area near the stadium. Police said he was on school grounds for several hours Sunday, and caught on camera about an hour after the last sighting of Weiser.

Police described the person of interest as a 6-foot tall black man with an athletic build. He had on a backpack in the video footage."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ka-weiser-identified-victim-article-1.2592013

Thanks for your post. For some reason my "thanks" button shows up on some posts but not others.

 

[SpanishInquisition]

So sad. She seemed like such a beautiful vibrant gal. I too have looked at the maps and while there does seem to be some cover from trees, this all seems to take place in an area less than a city block. What kind of walkway is this...paved? Enough room for several people to fit? Just a short cut? Is it well traveled? If the video is actually the perpetrator, it suggests this all happened in a relatively short period of time. If she was last seen at 9:30pm on Sunday and the video was around 11:30pm with him just casually walking about, seems he had a plan of action. I just don't get it. If the motivation was rape, why kill her? I wonder if she knew the attacker? Also, there must be more video of the suspect, otherwise how do they determine he's the one, when there are others going thru the video as well. And why is he still in the area 2 hours later?

Purely my speculation, but they probably have publicly unreleased video showing him go down to the creek or other such activity that firmly places him there. I don't know if the original intent was murder, but it sounds like this suspect acted in all the same ways as the serial rapist except this was more violent and in a different part of Austin. I think whoever did this it was not their first rodeo with ambush assault but it may have been their first murder. I think whoever did this had to have either knocked her out cold immediately or came from her from behind with a weapon, which coming from behind with a knife is what the serial rapist's MO has been and maybe she ended up seeing him so he killed her for that.

 

[mrsu]

I just noticed in the video that at the start it seems like he has a backpack but when the video splices and it shows him again, it now looks like he has an additional bag and is trying to hang it on the handlebars while he pushes the bike, but he still appears to have his backpack on. Am I the only one who caught this??

 

[Inthedetails]

Thanks for your post. For some reason my "thanks" button shows up on some posts but not others.

That happens to me from time to time too. "Refresh" the page and the thanks button should come back.