3-year gap in attacks puzzling

Authorities think a serial rape suspect likely has victims elsewhere.

By BILL VARIAN, Times Staff Writer
Published October 3, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT Jerrod Pass, 38, is accused in attacks this summer and in 2003 and 2004.

TAMPA - By all appearances, a serial rapist took a three-year hiatus before a pair of attacks on women this summer.

Law enforcement officers don't buy it.

Authorities issued a nationwide FBI alert Tuesday, seeking other possible victims of suspect Jerrod Pass, 38. They can't account for his time from mid 2004 until this summer and don't believe he simply laid low.

"We believe he's a serial rapist," said Sgt. Paul Mumford, with the Tampa Police Department's sex crimes and family violence unit. "We don't believe this individual just suddenly started, then suddenly stopped, then suddenly started again."

The alert came as Tampa police filed 14 new charges against Pass stemming from alleged attacks on women in 2003 and 2004. Charges range from burglary to sexual battery.

Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies have already held Pass on the same number of charges for attacks June 14 and Aug. 19 of this year, as well as a separate burglary.

The attacks on women, ranging from age 16 to the mid 30s, bore striking similarities. They were generally carried out in early morning hours against single black women, in some cases under threat that their children would be harmed.

The attacker took off his shoes upon entering the residences. Some victims said their attacker had a foul body odor.

Each of the crimes occurred in neighborhoods off Fowler Avenue near the University of South Florida. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement analysis of a DNA sample taken from Pass on Aug. 28 linked him to most of the crime scenes.

In one case, DNA taken from shoes left behind at the scene were matched with the DNA profile from the mouth swab he provided.

Pass was held at the Orient Road Jail without bail. Investigators have since recovered panties, purses and other personal belongings they believe are souvenirs, kept in a storage unit on E Fletcher Avenue.

What concerns investigators at this point is the gap between the clusters of attacks.

"He wasn't in this area, most likely," said TPD spokeswoman Andrea Davis. "We could walk away and say these are our cases, but there are some people out there who need closure."

Dr. Robert I. Simon, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., said local investigators are justified in their suspicions that other women may have been attacked.

"I've never heard of a situation where a rapist would start and then all of a sudden stop. There's a certain compulsivity to their behavior," said Simon, author of Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior.

"Something else is going on here that doesn't make sense. There's no way he could have stopped for all that time."

Police released arrest affidavits Tuesday in connection with four separate attacks on three women.

News researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Bill Varian can be reached at varian@sptimes.com or 813 226-3387.

[Last modified October 3, 2007, 00:02:37]