Police Search For Additional Victims Of Suspected Rapist Who Targeted Sleeping Women

COLLEGE PARK, MD — Authorities are searching for more rape victims in the case of a man charged in a four-year string of home invasions and sexual assaults just off the University of Maryland campus in College Park and Georgetown.

Last month, Ernesto Mercado, 54, of Arlington, Virginia, was arrested in connection to five sexual offenses that happened in the Georgetown area of the District of Columbia between 2008 to 2012. Mercado has been charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse with aggravating circumstances and five counts of second-degree sexual abuse with aggravating circumstances in connection to five previously unsolved, forensically linked home invasion rapes, according to the prosecution.

Evidence testing in all five cases yielded the same unknown male DNA profile that also matched a DNA profile for a separate offense that happened just off the campus of the University of Maryland in College Park, prosecutors said. Authorities confirmed Mercado lived in College Park between 2002-2007.

According to the complaint, in multiple attacks, the victims were sleeping when Mercado began his assault. They reported waking up to a stranger sexually assaulting them. After the victims woke up, the assailant fled.

“Thanks to DNA evidence from the rape kits of courageous survivors, improvements in DNA technology and the tireless efforts of our law enforcement partners and our prosecutors, we were able to link these six rapes,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves. “Once we had a DNA profile of the suspect, the team used every forensic tool at its disposal, as well as old-fashioned detective work, to identify the person behind this DNA profile.”

The incidents include a June 26, 2008, sexual assault; a July 10, 2009, sexual assault; a Feb. 28, 2010, sexual assault; an Aug. 29, 2010, sexual assault; and an Aug. 31, 2012, sexual assault, all in the District of Columbia. The defendant was linked to the attacks through DNA testing and other investigative tools, prosecutors say.

Anyone who was a victim of sexual assault or who may have information related to these or other cases is asked to call the Metropolitan Police Department at 202-727-9099 or text 50411.