A Sebastopol man suspected of trying to rape a pregnant woman Monday in a southern Sebastopol neighborhood was in custody after deputies found him hiding under his home Tuesday afternoon.
The man also was being investigated in connection with a recent sexual assault of a Santa Rosa Junior College employee, due to similarities in his appearance to the SRJC attacker, law enforcement officials said.
?Evidence from both crimes, as well as from the suspect in that (Sebastopol) case will be compared and analyzed. We are unable to confirm if the two cases are related. All other leads are still being pursued,? Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Lisa Banayat said.
Odalis Solano Rosario, 27, was bitten by a police dog during the 1 p.m. arrest on Highway 116 near Cooper Road. He was treated at a hospital and taken to Sonoma County Jail, Sheriff?s Lt. Chris Spallino said.
The woman was taken to a local hospital and released.
Deputies were called to the area Monday afternoon with a report of a sexual assault in the Hessel area along Highway 116 near Cooper Road. A man had approached the woman in the neighborhood outside her Cooper Road home and began assaulting her.
?She resisted, tried to fight him off and screamed. Neighbors responded and tried to intervene but he pulled out a knife,? Spallino said.
Neighbors heard her screams and confronted her assailant, according to sheriff officials, but the suspect ran. Neighbors ran after him but he brandished a knife. They lost sight of the suspect as he ran toward Highway 116.
The victim identified Rosario, a neighbor, as her attacker.
Deputies searched the neighborhood but did not locate him. Deputies conducted night-long surveillance of the suspect?s home, but left the scene Tuesday morning with no sign of the man. Soon after, a neighbor reported seeing him return to his home wearing the same clothes as the night before, Spallino said.
Deputies returned and found Rosario hiding under his house and brandishing a knife, according to the report. He refused to surrender and deputies sent a trained dog to retrieve him.
He was arrested on suspicion of using a weapon, resisting arrest, attempted rape, penetration with a foreign object, kidnapping, sexual battery and assault with a deadly weapon.
He was booked in county jail and is being held without bail.
Court records show that Rosario was convicted last year of misdemeanor indecent exposure in a 2007 Sebastopol case and sentenced to 10 months in county jail.
Rosario is currently awaiting trial on a loitering charge, having declined a prosecution offer to settle the case and serve six months in jail.
Also last year, he was convicted of misdemeanor disorderly conduct in a January 2008 case involving peeking in the door or window of an inhabited building. He got an additional six months in jail for the conviction.
Tuesday afternoon, Grace Meacham, 55, and her daughter posted flyers with descriptions of the suspect around the rural neighborhood along Cooper Road.
Meacham said she saw Rosario allegedly looking through a bathroom window of their home about one year ago and reported the incident to the sheriff. She called authorities again six months ago after her youngest daughter saw him looking into her bedroom window.
?I didn?t know whether to lock the doors or what to do,? Meacham said. ?I?ve got three girls.?
Earlier court cases for Rosario include a 2005 conviction for misdemeanor trespassing and a 2002 conviction for battery on a spouse.
Detectives said they were working with the Santa Rosa Police Department Tuesday to determine if the sexual assault cases are related. Junior College detectives handed the case over to the police department Tuesday afternoon.
Rosario is short and stocky, at 5?5? and 190 pounds, similar to the description of the man who attacked a college employee last Tuesday about 10:45 a.m.
In that case, a 59-year-old Santa Rosa woman working in her office in the college theater building was attacked by a man who had knocked on her door.
She fought him off and yelled and he ran. That case remained under investigation Tuesday. There was no knife shown in that case.
?We?re looking at any possible suspect,? Banayat said. ?We haven?t eliminated anyone yet in this investigation.?
Staff Writer Paul Payne contributed to this story.
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