GUILTY OH - Dean Allen Strunk, Serial Rape Suspect, Warren County, 2005

A man who police say raped seven females from 1994 to 1999 is now behind bars.

Dean Allen Strunk, 48, lived on Celestial Circle in Liberty Township.

Neighbors described him as a "typical guy next door raising his family." Strunk has a five-year-old daughter.

Strunk is currently charged with only one of the rapes, but all seven rapes are linked by evidence, police said.

These are the seven linked rape cases:

07/07/94 - 15-year-old girl raped near Blanchester
12/16/94 - 15-year-old girl raped near Blanchester
04/13/98 - 14-year-old girl raped in Mason
07/25/98 - 11-year-old girl raped in Mason
04/14/99 - 26-year-old woman raped in Mason
07/25/99 - 5-year-old girl raped in Montgomery
10/06/99 - Juvenile female raped in Colerain Township
Pattern in Attacks?

One of the fascinating clues investigators examined was the dates the rapist struck. In some cases, it was like clockwork.

As you can see from the above list, three of the rapes took place in July of three different years, two of those on july 25th, almost like anniversary attacks.

Two others occured in the months of April, separated by just one day.

Two more rapes occured in October and December.

Police haven't said if they've figured out any connection.

Dean Strunk was a single father who had full custody of his five-year-old daughter. They lived on a quiet neighborhood in Liberty Township where neighbors are in shock over his arrest.
"My first reaction when it was rape was tears. I'd let Dean in my house at 2 a.m. if he knocked. I never would have seen this type of behavior from him," said Susan Werner, Strunk's neighbor.

"We've had Dean over for dinner. He's the typical guy next door raising his family," she said.

Werner met Strunk two years ago when he moved into a duplex a few doors down on Celestial Circle. His daughter goes to the same day care as her son.

"He worships his daughter. He's the kind of dad who is tying her shoelaces or giving her hugs taking her for walks on her little truck that she rides," Werner said.
Werner speculated that the birth of his daughter may have prompted Strunk to end his alleged rape spree.

9News is told Strunk's daughter is staying with Strunk's parents.
http://www.wcpo.com/news/2005/local/07/28/mason.html

Other rape cases against Strunk will go to a grand jury, police said. The seven female victims were ages 5 to 26.

Mason police had been investigating three rapes in their city for the past six years. They said a single suspect's DNA had been found in the Mason cases in 1998 and 1999 and in rapes in Montgomery and Colerain Township in 1999.

More than 300 DNA tests were conducted in search of a match.

Then came two breaks in the investigation this year.

First, DNA linked a 1994 rape in the Blanchester area to the other five.

Detective Scott Doughman, the lead investigator in the Mason cases, contacted the Warren County Sheriff's Department and began investigating rapes in the Blanchester area.

Doughman and Blanchester police then discovered a seventh victim linked by the same DNA.

Crime analysts from the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (BCI&I) pulled together evidence from all seven cases, police said. http://www.channelcincinnati.com/news/4781284/detail.html

http://wkrc.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=770C1F2E-2296-4503-931F-AEC713519370

This guy doesn't live that far away from me. Blanchester is where I take my son to the movies.
Local LE has made a plea for other area LE to pull their rape cases, and cold rape cases to look at them again, with this guy in mind as they feel that he may have committed other rapes in the area. No info as to what leads them to think that, other than that is what led to his arrest this time.

Police said they did not have Strunk's DNA sample until this week.

Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel called the break "good old-fashioned police work," but she and police would say little about what exactly led them to Strunk, who does not appear to have a criminal history.

He had custody of a 5-year-old daughter, whose mother is in prison on drug charges. Strunk was not married to the woman, and the daughter is now in the custody of Strunk's parents, Hutzel said.

Police searched Strunk's duplex on Tuesday with a warrant and filed charges of felonious sexual penetration and kidnapping involving the December 1994 incident. They would not say what evidence they collected that could be tied to the attacks, other than a sample of Strunk's DNA obtained through a search warrant.

A 1998 driver's license that police obtained from the state motor vehicle bureau shows a blue-eyed Strunk sporting a reddish-brown mustache - two distinct characteristics described by victims in the attacks since 1998. His appearance has changed drastically since the attacks.

Rose said Strunk was not a suspect then and he had never heard of Strunk before he received the recent call from Doughman.

Ferrell urged other area police agencies to look through their files for similarities.
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050729/NEWS01/507290412

14 February 2006

A Butler County man who raped four young girls in Warren County was sentenced on Tuesday.Dean Strunk, 48, will spend at least 29 years behind bars. Strunk admitted to sexually assaulting four girls in separate attacks in Warren County between 1994 and 1999.

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http://www.whio.com//news/news/butler-co-gets-prison-time-for-multiple-rapes/nH4qK/