Elias Diaz faces new charges in 2003 Fairmount Park, 2007 Pennypack Park rapes
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Elias Diaz, the man police believe to be the "Fairmount Park Rapist" who was arrested for recent knife attacks on the Pennypack Park trail, is facing new charges in connection with three rapes from 2003 and 2007.
The Philadelphia Police Department said Wednesday that Diaz was formally charged with rape, attempted rape, kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, aggravated assault and related offenses in connection to two unsolved 2003 rapes in Fairmount Park and another in Pennypack Park from 2007.
Police identified Diaz, 46, as a person of interest in the "Fairmount Park Rapist" cold case on Dec. 19, just days after he was arrested for multiple Pennypack Park trail slashings.
Diaz was officially charged in the rape and murder of 30-year-old Rebecca Park in July 2023.
Investigators said earlier this month they believe Diaz attacked two other women in 2003 and a 29-year-old woman in 2007. Diaz has now officially been charged in connection with those sexual assaults.
After Diaz's Dec. 17 arrest, police uncovered DNA from Diaz that determined he was involved or a person of interest in Park's murder. Before his arrest, police claim Diaz was living in an encampment in Pennypack Park.
Mike Chitwood Jr., now a sheriff in Florida, led the investigation into Park's disappearance and murder in 2003. She was the second person police claim Diaz attacked.
"I'm so proud of the detectives, they never let up," Chitwood Jr. said. "They were always trying to do something with technology because as long as you have DNA, there's always a possibility that somewhere in the future as the science becomes even greater, you're gonna be able to go back to these cases and close them."
The first incident at Fairmount Park in the series of attacks happened on April 30, 2003. Police said a 21-year-old woman was attacked by a man at 10:30 p.m. on Kelly and Fountain Green Drive while she was out jogging.
A few months later on July 16, Philadelphia detectives took a report of a missing woman, later identified as Park, who was living in the area and attending college as a medical student. Her body was eventually found after she was raped and strangled to death in dense woods along Conshohocken Avenue.
On Oct. 25, 2003, another woman said she was dragged out to the river by a man at Fairmount Park on West River Drive. She was injured during the attack, police said, and she fought the attacker off.
In 2007, a woman in her 20s was sexually assaulted not too far from the Pennypack Park slashings in the 8th District, police said.
Police said the genealogical analysis used to narrow down possible persons of interest included a field of more than 1,000 people.
Court documents show Diaz's next appearance is a preliminary hearing scheduled for Jan. 8, 2024. He is currently being held without bail.