On September 17, 1982, a 27-year-old woman walking gave little thought to a jogger at the corner of Grayson Drive and Fox Road. It was mid-morning, so who expects to be grabbed by a complete stranger in broad daylight in the suburbs?
But the man,
wearing a gray track suit, pulled her into the woods across the street from
where the skeleton of Tammy Lynds, 15, was found 12 years later behind a log. The
“jogger,” described as husky, medium height, with blond hair, raped and robbed
the woman before she finally ran to a house and 10:07 a.m. and called the
police, who responded with several squad cars but couldn’t find the
perpetrator. She was treated in Wesson Hospital’s emergency room.
Residents of
the nearby Partridge Drive/Finch Road neighborhood wondered if this was the
work of the notorious rapist who had been preying on women and teens (five
rapes and two assaults since June 1982) in wooded areas, including a place
known as “the pit” off Finch. But the Fox Road attacker didn’t fit the
description of the dark-haired 19-year-old who was arrested on October 29,
1982, pleaded guilty, and sentenced to 8-10 years for three of the rapes.
Was there
another predator out there? Police believed there were “one or more” rapists.
The question was answered a little more than two months later.
* * * * * * *
Rosemary (not
her real name), who lived down the street from the Fox Road woods, was supposed
to meet a friend, who was late, so the 14-year-old was walking alone. It was
1:00 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon, so she paid little attention to the youth
walking toward her from Methuen Street, across from the intersection of Grayson
Drive and Fox Road. After all, it was widely publicized that the area rapist
had been caught. Moreover, this was her neighborhood, and she had walked there
hundreds of times. It was November 28, 1982, and the guy who was strolling by
asked her for the time. When she looked down at her watch, he stepped behind
her, put his arm around her neck, dragged her into the woods, and put a knife
to her throat.
“I struggled to
get away, and he told me to stop or he would kill me,” she said. “Once in the
woods, he pushed me down and jumped on top of me and straddled me. I was unable
to get him off. I was very small—I don’t think I even weighed 100 pounds.”
As he was
inappropriately touching her, a car stopped and two men chased him, but he was
able to disappear quickly. The good Samaritans brought her home and they called
the police.
But that wasn’t
the end of it. Police had someone in mind: a high school student, and the
composite drawing based on her description matched his face. He was blond,
stocky, and had wire-rimmed glasses. She was brought to his high school by
police the following week and there he was—she identified him in the hallway for
the detective assigned to the case. “It was very scary for me to see him
there,” she recalled. “When he saw us, he started to quickly try to leave the
school, but they arrested him.”
She went to
court hearings, which dragged on for several months. “I was young and scared to
keep going so all the charges were dropped,” she said. “I remember being
terrified to get on the witness stand and tell everyone what he did—where he
touched and groped me. They made me say it very explicitly, and I was mortified
and embarrassed. After that, I refused to go up and speak again.”
He was wearing
camouflage-style pants and jacket during the attack, and police found these
clothes when they searched his room. He claimed he was at church at the time,
but his alibi’s time frame didn’t match up with the Mass schedule.
“I will never
forget what he looked like,” she said. When I showed her photos of him from his
high school yearbook, she said the guy definitely looked like her attacker—the
same facial features, face shape, hairline, the same part in his hair, glasses,
and all. She had gotten a good look at him before he accosted her. “I saw his
face all of 5-10 seconds as he walked past me and turned around behind me,” she
said.
Today, when
Rosemary sees photos of Tammy Lynds, she thinks it’s remarkable how much the
murder victim resembled herself at that age.
“I always
wondered what would have happened to me if the car didn’t drive by,” she said.
But she tries not to think about it too much, because she shudders at the
possibilities: rape? Murder? She has been thinking about it more lately,
though, whenever she drives by the Tammy Lynds memorial flag on Fox Road, which
has been up since April.
“I am still
torn about not following through with possible prosecution,” she said. “I have
felt that if I had followed through, maybe Tammy would still be alive. But I
have no way of knowing for sure if it was him in either event. And even if it
was, he would have done his time and been back out by then.”
Rosemary has
never been a pushover despite her size. “I’ve always been a scrappy person—strong-willed
and in control no matter how small I was,” she said. “I’ve always been so mad
at myself that I couldn’t do more to stop him. I feel blessed that those guys went
by when they did. I feel sad that I was so young and didn’t have the emotional
strength to see it through in court. I do, however, wish I had more physical
strength to have hurt him, maimed him, or given him some sort of permanent
injury that he would never fully recover from. Then there would have been no
question of his innocence or guilt. Then he would have to think about the pain
forever.”
* * * * * * *
What’s particularly
interesting about the 1982 attacks on Fox Road is not only the similar
description of the assailant(s) and the fact that they were daytime assaults.
There were also the “uniform-like” outfits in the encounters: both predators
wore matching pants and jackets (a track suit in one, military fatigues in the
other). In addition, there is a ruse involved: supposed “jogging” in the first
incident (and dressing the part), and asking what time it was in the second.
And get this: the suspect in the latter ambush was on his high school track
team.
Before the
Finch Road rapist was caught, police believed one of the attackers in the rash
of rapes and assaults was a white male who had dirty blond (also described as
“sandy blond”) or light brown hair, was between 5-foot-7 and six feet tall, and
was in his late teens or early 20s. Several people in the North Branch Parkway
area who resembled the description cooperated with police, went to department
headquarters to be photographed, and they were later cleared. One officer
conceded, “There are 500 people who look like that.”
Over the years
it somehow became suburban legend that the youth who was arrested for “the pit”
rapes was responsible for ALL the attacks. He wasn’t. There was/is another guy
out there.
* * * * * * *
Is it a stretch
to think that the sex offender on Fox Road in 1982 might have had something to
do with Tammy’s death? A dozen years later is a long time, even if you believe
that a rapist might return to the scene of the crime to relive the moment.
At present, there is no way of knowing if all this brutality on Fox Road was committed by the same person. Nonetheless, there are times when Rosemary can’t help linking the attack on her and Tammy’s murder. “Something in my gut keeps me thinking there is some connection,” she mused. “Maybe I just want there to be justice.”
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