Felonious Florida launches new podcast season: “In the Darkness”

“Be a good girl and nothing will happen to you.”

Those were the words a young secretary heard when she was awakened in the early hours of May 1, 1981 by an intruder who had entered her Miami apartment through the balcony door.

He put a pillowcase over her head and raped her in the dark.

Before the end of the summer, police were investigating the rape of four more women by the same perpetrator in the same apartment complex, called Alisian Lakes.

These were the first of what investigators believe were more than 40 attacks over a five-year period by the perpetrator who became known as the “Pillowcase Rapist” – one of Florida’s most prolific serial rapists who had police on a manhunt for nearly four decades.

A new season of the Sun Sentinel’s “Felonious Florida: In the Darkness” podcast, now available to listen to for free, links together for the first time the dozens of rapes believed to have been committed by the same man across South Florida and examines how he managed to evade capture for years.

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The podcast, produced by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, reveals new details of the investigation, including a rape that occurred years after the last known assault in 1986. The series also reveals that both science and luck were needed to finally solve the case.

Listeners will follow detectives led by then-Sergeant Dave Simmons of the Miami-Dade Police Department as they investigate dozens of attacks in Miami-Dade and Broward counties believed to have been committed by the same man between 1981 and 1986.

The rapist stalked women – most of them single professionals – and waited until late at night when they were alone in their apartments and townhouses. He usually broke in through a balcony door or window and even climbed buildings to reach apartments up to four floors high.

By the end of the series, the rapist’s attacks had spread across more than 500 square miles of South Florida.

Through interviews with victims, investigators and others, the series “Felonious Florida” examines the numerous suspects Simmons and his investigators investigated, including a disgraced killer cop and a burglar who brutally murdered a young woman in South Miami.

Listen to the new season of Felonious Florida to find out how this extraordinary case unfolded over four decades and came to a remarkable and unexpected conclusion. LISTEN.