Police are looking for a man who sexually assaulted five women in eastern Queens over the past month.
The suspect, nicknamed by residents as “the Laurelton rapist,” strikes in the Queens Village, Laurelton and Springfield Gardens neighborhoods.?He targets women walking alone at night.
His most recent attack was Sunday, Oct. 16. He followed a 24-year-old woman walking on Conduit Avenue at about 7 p.m. and then hit her in the back of the head, police said, causing her to fall to the ground. He then sexually assaulted her.
The attacks began on Sept. 22, officials said. That night, just after 1 a.m., he followed a 44-year-old woman as she entered her home in Queens Village, and then he grabbed and sexually assaulted her.
A few weeks later, on Oct. 7, he struck again. He grabbed and sexually assaulted a woman as she entered her Queens Village apartment building.
Two days later, at 1 a.m. on Oct. 9, police say the same man approached a woman on 145th Road. He pushed her to the ground, said cops, punched her several times in the face and tried to rape her. He fled the scene after a neighbor heard his victim’s cries for help.
Then, just days later, he struck again, said police, sexually assaulting a 23-year-old woman walking alone on 226th Street at South Conduit Avenue.
