Alleged 'East Coast Rapist' attempts suicide

[News_Editor]

Alleged 'East Coast Rapist' attempts suicide

2011-03-07 04:03:48 GMT+7 (ICT)

NEW HAVEN (BNO NEWS) -- Aaron Thomas, the man identified as the "East Coast Rapist", attempted to hang himself in his New Haven, Connecticut, jail cell Saturday afternoon, police said.

Thomas, suspected of raping 17 women over a decade in four different states, was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. He was released and back in jail on Sunday, the New Haven Register reported.

The former truck driver is scheduled to be arraigned in court Monday on charges related to two of the 12 attacks he allegedly committed as he terrorized women in four states during the past 13 years. Thomas, 39, was charged with sexual assault in the first degree, burglary in the first degree and risk of injury to a minor and was being held on $1 million. He was also charged as a fugitive from justice in Prince William County, Virginia, with charges of rape, abduction and the use of a firearm in a felony.

Police said Saturday that DNA from a man arrested in Connecticut on Friday confirmed that he is the "East Coast Rapist". Earlier this week, the FBI launched a digital billboard campaign in Connecticut, Virginia, Maryland and Rhode Island with a sketch of the perpetrator to solicit information from the public. Police have said the East Coast Rapist watched his victims, and used a gun, a knife, a broken bottle or a screwdriver in the attacks. All the attacks took place near major highways.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-03-07

[AZBill]

They should have let him swing and save some inmate additional jail time for taking him out.