By BOB CHRISTIE
Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX- For the past 14 months, a serial rapist stalked young women in this city, tracking their moves before he made his.
Police decided to use the same technique - watching, waiting and trying to stay one step ahead of the elusive rapist - to catch their suspect.
On Sept. 19, police arrested David B. Wilson Jr. after he parked right next to an undercover officer who had been staking out the area for weeks.
Authorities say 32-year-old Wilson, a self-employed satellite TV dish installer and son of a Phoenix police sergeant, later admitted raping 12 women. He was booked on multiple counts of sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, kidnapping and burglary.
Phoenix Assistant Police Chief Kevin Robinson, who had approved a task force dedicated solely to catching the rapist, said the case warranted special attention.
“It was the same person re-offending,” Robinson said. He rationalized that the sexual offender’s “violence potential is going to grow and at one point or another someone is going to get killed.”
Since July 2004, the rapist had been linked through physical evidence, including DNA, to the assaults and attempted assaults.
With only a vague physical description of a white male with a pot belly, finding the suspect proved a formidable challenge _ police needed to locate one man among 1.4 million people in a city that sprawls across more than 500 square miles.
Police knew surveillance was needed. Robinson pulled detectives from several departments, with 50 officers used solely for stakeouts.
They tracked where victims had their hair cut and where they bought groceries, hoping to find a pattern. They mapped times, mapped places and known behaviors of the rapist. And they watched.
The posts were manned, and backup teams in place, night after night after night.
In the seven weeks leading up to Wilson’s arrest, 13,000 man-hours were spent on surveillance.
By the time Detective Jerri Hubert parked in her usual spot outside an apartment complex on Sept. 19, she knew the locals, she knew the dog walkers and night joggers, and she knew what felt right.
So when Wilson pulled up in a white Ford pickup right next to her, she ducked down in her own truck and watched.
He got out, briefly walked to the back of his pickup, then began skulking in the darkness, hugging a wall as he purposefully walked toward a backyard, police said.
“That’s when I thought, ‘OK, I’ve been sitting here for two months and I’ve never seen anyone go that way,’” said Hubert, who called for backup.
Police helicopters hovered above, and Wilson took off. Minutes later, police caught him in a woman’s backyard. He later confessed, they said.
Sgt. Jim Markey said he wasn’t surprised Wilson decided to open up to police.
“You’ve got to understand, this was a secret that this guy’s kept for a long, long time,” Markey said. “That takes a toll on you.”