Tom Wilson

Tom Wilson is charged in central Pa. Police seek to tie him to Phila. attacks. A West Philadelphia man charged with sexually assaulting women at a central Pennsylvania university is a suspect in similar attacks here, in which five victims were terrorized in Center City and near the University of Pennsylvania. The suspect, Domenique Thomas Wilson, 23, also lived just blocks from the ATMs where the rapist who assaulted women here was photographed using the victims' stolen ATM cards.

Philadelphia Special Victims Unit Lt. Thomas McDevitt said yesterday that detectives here had obtained DNA from Wilson after his arrest in central Pennsylvania. A comparison with evidence collected from Philadelphia crime scenes may be available early next week, he said. Wilson, 23, of the 1000 block of South 51st Street, is accused of entering a Lock Haven apartment on Feb. 1, threatening three female Lock Haven University students with a knife, holding them captive for hours, raping two of them, stealing cell phones and debits cards, and withdrawing money from their bank accounts.

On Oct. 22, in the 900 block of Clinton Street, the assailant forced his way into an apartment as the victim and her boyfriend were on their way out. The boyfriend was bound and gagged, and the woman was sexually assaulted. McDevitt said a television reporter in the Lock Haven area noticed similarities among the cases and contacted Philadelphia detectives. That reporter was Adam Paluka, who is in the State College bureau of WTAJ-TV, the CBS affiliate in Altoona.