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Volunteers canvassing Detroit neighborhood for rapist say they spotted suspect

By FOX 2 Staff and Amber Ainsworth
Published  March 30, 2023 5:14pm EDT
Crime and Public Safety
FOX 2 Detroit

Volunteers looking for rapist believe suspect walked by them on Detroit's west side

FOX 2 cameras were rolling for an interview when activists believe a man who walked by is a suspect accused of raping an 80-year-old woman in the area over the weekend. He ran away before he could be stopped.

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Volunteers canvassing a Detroit neighborhood in search of a rapist believe they encountered the suspect Thursday.

Police and activists are looking for a man who dragged an 80-year-old woman out of her home and sexually assaulted her Sunday.

Read: Police release sketch of suspect who raped 80-year-old woman

According to Chief James White, the suspect approached the woman at her home on Memorial near the Southfield Freeway and I-96 and asked if she needed help with packages. She declined.

Later, he came back and entered her home through an open backdoor around 9:05 p.m. Sunday. When the woman told the man to leave, he grabbed her, dragged her outside, and sexually assaulted her. This happened as the victim's handicapped husband was inside the home.

"The few people out here with me said it looked like him, and he was looking at us, and he ducked, he ducked out," activist Malik Shabazz said. "Then he cut through the playground at Dolson,he kept looking back at us, and we’re coming, and then he ran, he started running."

The volunteers say the man they think may be the suspect walked as the suspect did on surveillance video.

"We might be wrong but he’s running and it looks like him," Shabazz said.

Police said Wednesday that they believed the man was in the area where the crime occurred.