GUILTY VA - Aaron Thomas for rape of 3 teen girls, Dale City, 2009

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Man Dubbed East Coast Rapist Reportedly Tries to Hang Self


The man authorities have dubbed the East Coast Rapist attempted to hang himself in a New Haven, Conn., jail cell Saturday afternoon, according to the New Haven Register.

Aaron Thomas, 39, was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital and is undergoing a psychiatric examination, according to the paper.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/0...rapist-case-arrested-962402905/#ixzz1FmIajoQx
 
inmates hate rapists, he'll certainly get his in prison if he can not successfully kill himself before he gets sent upstate.
it's great they caught the !!
 
The Washington Post's Maria Glod and Josh White have been covering the East Coast Rapist story actively since early 2010.

[See the March 2010 series of stories in my first post above:

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - East Coast Rapist ARRESTED Mar 5, 2011 (took 13 years) ]

The Washington Post: Tip yields arrest in East Coast Rapist case
Saturday, March 5, 2011; 12:00 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030405132.html
Law enforcement sources said an acquaintance of the suspect [Aaron H. Thomas, 39] called authorities after spotting those media reports. Detectives were interested because the name matched one they already had on a short list of potential suspects.

Police immediately began watching [Aaron] Thomas in the New Haven area. Law enforcement sources said that Thomas made a court appearance in New Haven on a larceny charge on Thursday and that police were able to recover a cigarette butt he discarded during a break.
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The Washington Post: East Coast Rapist suspect charged in series of attacks
Saturday, March 5, 2011; 11:13 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/05/AR2011030503230.html
Police have long said the person responsible for the rapes likely lived or worked near where they occurred. [Aaron] Thomas's address history places him close to almost all of the rapes linked by DNA.

In the late 1990s, four Prince George's attacks took place within five miles of his District Heights home. One was as close as a mile.

An address listed for Thomas in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County, where the rapes in 1999 occurred, was within four miles of three attacks along Route 1. It was three-quarters of a mile from a 2001 rape on Rolling Hills Avenue. An address listed for him in Prince William was two miles from the Halloween 2009 rape of two teenagers; his current address in New Haven is seven miles from the rape there.
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The Washington Post: Police trace suspect's movements in East Coast rape case
Monday, March 7, 2011; 2:02 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/07/AR2011030701520.html
On Monday morning, Fairfax County Police Chief David M. Rohrer and other law enforcement officials asked those who know [Aaron] Thomas, or women who may have been victimized by him, to contact them. Detectives said there are likely attacks they don't yet know about, and they have questions about Thomas's past and his travels.
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The Washington Post: Demeanor of rape suspect surprises detectives
Tuesday, March 8, 2011; 4:53 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/03/15/ST2010031501850.html
The detectives who had been hunting the East Coast Rapist for 14 years finally walked into an interview room in Connecticut to confront their suspect late last week. They were ready to face a combative, ruthless predator.

What they found instead was a mild, passive, talkative and even weak man, according to several law enforcement officials. [...]

They said [Aaron] Thomas was keenly aware of media coverage of the East Coast Rapist and left Northern Virginia for New England sometime last year after reading an investigative report in The Washington Post that detailed the series of crimes. The most recent rape attributed to Thomas was on Halloween in 2009, when three teenage trick-or-treaters were forced into a woods in Prince William County and two of them were sexually assaulted.

Police also said Thomas had visited www.eastcoastrapist.com, a Web site they launched last week.
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Hartford Courant: Prosecutor: East Coast Rape Suspect Says He Has a 'Jekyll-Hyde Personality'
10:12 p.m. EST, March 7, 2011
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-east-coast-rapist-0308-20110307,0,4328756,full.story
A bail commissioner said that [Aaron] Thomas has no convictions in Connecticut.

His record in Virginia includes a 2003 assault and battery. He also has a record in Washington, D.C., that includes possession with intent to distribute drugs.

Thomas appeared in the New Haven courthouse Thursday on a charge of fourth-degree larceny. The charge stemmed from an allegation that he stole a bike in Woodbridge.

It was his smoke break that day that led to his arrest.

A team of police officers and federal marshals was watching Thomas after getting a tip that he was the East Coast Rapist.

So when they saw Thomas throw a cigarette butt on the ground next to a bus stop, a deputy marshal picked it up and it was quickly tested, according to an arrest warrant released Monday. The DNA on the cigarette butt matched that of the rapist.

The tip that led police to Thomas came in to Prince George's County in Maryland on Feb. 28, the day that police from more than half a dozen agencies announced that they were putting composite sketches of the suspect on digital billboards.

The caller had "first-hand information," the warrant states, that the suspect was Aaron Thomas, who had "taken credit" for the first attack in Forestville, Md.
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New Haven Independent: When Should Public See Alleged Rapist’s Face?
Mar 7, 2011 3:28 pm
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/...y/east_coast_rapist_appears_in_court/id_34377
As the alleged “East Coast Rapist” hid his eyes behind shades and bent his head in court, the cops tried to keep his mug shot off TV in the hopes of solving three more assaults. [...]

Police have tried to keep [Aaron] Thomas’s face out of the media. CNN filed a Freedom of Information request this weekend to get his mug shot. The cops turned CNN down.

That’s because they suspect Thomas committed three other sexual assaults in New Haven since 2007. But they don’t have DNA evidence from those crimes. They hope that the victims can pick Thomas’s face out of a photo line-up.

Having his mug spread across TV and the newspapers would jeopardize that identification, according to New Haven police spokesman Officer Joe Avery. [...]

The department’s quest to keep Thomas’s mug out of public view is a complicated one in the modern media age. The New Haven Register website published photos and a video clip of a shirtless Thomas being transported to the courthouse Monday morning. The shots showed his head down, so there was no clear view of his face.
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New Haven Register: 'Brazen, cold-blooded': New Haven police investigating whether East Coast Rapist suspect responsible for 3 other unsolved rapes
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2011/03/08/news/doc4d7514f1cd12b693113024.txt?viewmode=fullstory
At the Virginia news conference, Prince William County prosecutor Paul Ebert and Fairfax County Police Detective John Kelly said the case would have been solved years ago if Virginia police had been allowed to use what is called “familial DNA” searching.

In some cases, a DNA profile may not present an exact match in law enforcement databases but is close enough to indicate a family connection that could be used to track down a suspect. Most states, though, bar use of familial DNA searches because of privacy concerns.

Because Thomas did have a family member whose DNA was in a police database, Ebert said, that tool could have allowed police to home in on Thomas years ago. Virginia is now moving toward the use of familial DNA searches.
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Arrest warrant affidavit for Aaron H. Thomas, suspected East Coast Rapist
March 4, 2011

Thomas Arrest Warrant

PDF also attached. Discretion advised, as the affidavit contains a description of a rape incident.
 

Attachments

  • 50212752-Thomas-Arrest-Warrant.pdf
    485.3 KB · Views: 13
Thank God they finally caught this guy. Since I live in the same county where some of the rapes took place, I have followed this one for awhile. I was starting to think they would never catch him. His last known rapes occurred in the county south of us and some of the earlier ones happened less than five miles from where we live.

I wondered if he was a trucker due to the distances betweeen the rapes and proximity to major highways. I am so grateful that he will never see the light of day again, and I hope this brings some sort of relief to the many victims.
 
Wow! What a difference! This guy is a chameleon....that's the first thing I thought when I saw the composite sketches because they all looked so different.

Does anyone know how to post side by sides of the composite sketches vs his mug shots? Thank you.

wm
 
waltzingmatilda said:
Wow! What a difference! This guy is a chameleon....that's the first thing I thought when I saw the composite sketches because they all looked so different.

Does anyone know how to post side by sides of the composite sketches vs his mug shots? Thank you.

wm
Click to expand...

Here you go:

PH2011031003429.jpg


DNA-confirms-suspect-East-Coast-Rapist.jpg
 
Thanks so much belimom! It's kind of strange that none of those composites resemble him really. However, it must be difficult to remember facial details when one is being attacked in the dark by a madman!

I am glad LE finally released his mug because IDK that any of his victims would recognize him from the composite sketches. The victim who attended his arraignment didn't think this was her attacker. I hope she is shown both mugs of him because his appearance is totally different now vs years ago.

MOO

wm
 
Hearing postponed for alleged East Coast Rapist

01/25/12 10:21 AM

A preliminary hearing for the suspect in a series of violent sexual assaults along the East Coast has been delayed.

Aaron H. Thomas, the alleged East Coast Rapist, will not appear in court until March 1, according to the Prince William County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court clerk's office.

................. snip ,......................

Thomas' defense attorney says his client has engaged in self-destructive behavior and will not communicate with him, according to the Associated Press. His attorney is seeking a mental-health evaluation before further court proceedings.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs...leged-east-coast-rapist/2133481#ixzz1kpJq7j2M





AARON H. THOMAS

Series of articles regarding accused.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/topics/aaron-h-thomas
 
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