DNA evidence combined with a pattern followed by the rapist who attacked several Chicago-area women while they slept in their unlocked apartments led to sexual assault charges against a self-employed painter, police said Monday.
Mario Villa, 37, of the 4300 block of South Sawyer Avenue was charged with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault after police, armed with a search warrant, swabbed a DNA sample from him Friday when he appeared in court on an unrelated trespassing charge. The assault charges stem from two rapes–one Feb. 7 in the 2000 block of North Cleveland Avenue and one in May 2002 in the 1300 block of North Greenview Avenue. More charges are expected, police said.
“It is our hope that by catching this offender we are able to bring some sense of relief to the victims of these crimes,” Grand Central Area Cmdr. Dean Andrews said.
Police say Villa is suspected in at least seven other rapes between July 1999 and the Feb. 7 attack, all but one of which took place inside apartments late at night, including one in Lisle and one in Kenosha. He is suspected in several burglaries and trespassing cases.
“We believe there’s 14 [rapes, burglary or trespassing charges] in total that we know about,” Detective Robert Collins said. “As we still continue this investigation, there may be more coming in.”
Police said they pieced together leads by poring over crime reports on burglary and Peeping Tom activity. They began to notice the use of gloves and a flashlight, and in rapes, the man’s demand that victims shower afterward. Police also said Villa’s DNA matched evidence from six rapes.
The string of rapes of sleeping women has added to the fear in North Side neighborhoods where fliers with a sketch of an at-large suspect who attacks on the street remain taped to store windows and community bulletin boards.
Villa preferred to strike indoors and in the still of night, authorities alleged. In February he entered through an apartment’s unlocked window at 4 a.m. as a 23-year-old woman slept, Cook County Assistant State’s Atty. Meg O’Sullivan said.
He found his way to her bedroom with a flashlight, punched the woman and covered her mouth with his hand, O’Sullivan said.
“He then told the victim, `Shut up, or I will hurt you,'” O’Sullivan said.
Afterward he ordered the woman into the shower, O’Sullivan said, before stealing $120 and two cell phones.
Judge Raymond Myles on Monday set Villa’s bail at $1.5 million.
Villa has lived in Chicago for 13 years. Before that, in Texas, he was convicted in 1987 of burglary with the intent to commit sexual assault and given 5 years’ probation, prosecutors said. In 1991, also in Texas, he was convicted of aggravated assault and served about a year of a 3-year sentence before being paroled, authorities said.
Besides the rapes of which he’s been charged, police say, either DNA or other evidence has made Villa a suspect in Chicago rapes that occurred July 1999 in the 1300 block of North Dean Street; June 2003 in the 1800 block of North Halsted Street; October 2003 in the 3500 block of North Greenview Avenue; and December 2003 in the 1300 block of West Ohio Street. Police also suspect him in an October 2003 case of sexual abuse in the 1200 block of West Byron Street.
In addition, DNA evidence has linked Villa to a March 2003 rape in Lisle and an August 2003 rape in Kenosha, police said.
On Feb. 4 police arrested him on the trespassing charge after he had jumped a fence and climbed onto the back porch of a 50-year-old woman in the 1300 block of West Grenshaw Street, court records show. He was released on $2,000 bail in that case.
On Dec. 29 Villa was charged with agreeing to pay $40 for sex from an undercover officer posing as a prostitute. On Nov. 7, 2002, he was arrested on a Peeping Tom charge. On Sept. 28, 2002, he was arrested on Peeping Tom and battery charges after allegedly standing on a toilet in a woman’s bathroom to peer into a stall, then punching a man who tried to stop him from fleeing, the reports said.
On Nov. 28, 1998, he was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police found him crouching between a garage and a fence in the 3600 block of South Leavitt Street with a black flashlight and a pair of gloves in his sweatshirt pocket.
