Vancouver: Police have solved four cases of sex assaults, which occurred between July 1, 2009, and December 24, 2011.
A suspect has been arrested in connection with these cases.
The suspect, identified as Arturo Garcia Gorjon, has been charged with four counts of sexual assault.
The Vancouver Police said on Canada Day in 2009, a 20-year-old woman was attacked and sexually assaulted by a stranger while walking near Granville Island. The suspect fled before officers arrived, the police said.
According to Vancouver Police Department, on November 15, 2009, a 25-year-old woman was sexually assaulted while entering an apartment building in the West End. Thereafter, seven months later, a third woman was attacked in Yaletown.
“Police immediately launched investigations into all three cases. Though it was clear someone was targeting young women in the city, there was initially no evidence to conclusively link the three cases, and the identity of the attacker remained unknown,” Vancouver police said in a statement.
The police said officers got a breakthrough this January when they obtained evidence linking the three unsolved sex assaults to a fourth cold-case that occurred in the downtown core on Christmas Eve in 2010.
“Those links quickly led investigators to a 45-year-old suspect who was in Regina,” Vancouver police said.
“On July 21, our investigators travelled to Saskatchewan, arrested the suspect, and brought him back to Vancouver to face charges,” said Deputy Chief Constable Fiona Wilson, VPD Investigation Division, who thanked Regina Police Service’s Vice Unit for assisting in locating the suspect.