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The 19-year-old is Accused of Beating and Raping 2 Elderly Women
By Henry Pierson Curtis, Orland Sentinel
January 19, 2005
A man awaiting trial on charges of rape and attempted murder was arrested again late Monday in jail after detectives linked him to another sex crime against an elderly victim.
Jerrick Anthony Smith, 19, was arrested on a charge of armed sexual battery, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office. Smith remains held without bail in the Orange County Jail.
"It is remarkable that he is 19 and suspected of preying on victims of this age," said Detective Ron Folse of the sheriff's Sex Crimes unit. "It's a little unusual."
The victims in both cases were women over 70 years old who lived alone in Pine Hills, an area northwest of Orlando, according to reports.
The cases were linked in mid-August when the most recent victim was attacked in a violent manner similar to that of a previous rape two miles away in mid-July, according to investigators.
In the first case, the 71-year-old victim was a frail, 100-pound woman who was shot in the face and then raped after a man broke into her home about 5 a.m., according to reports.
In the second case, the 78-year-old victim, who used a walker after recovering from surgery, was raped after a man broke into her home. She was not shot but the masked rapist held a pistol in her mouth during the attack, according to reports.
DNA tied Smith to both crimes, said sheriff's spokeswoman Deputy Barbara Miller.
Two more rapes during the previous year are being investigated as possibly linked to Smith, Folse said.
Each victim in the two earlier attacks was a woman older than 50, the Sheriff's Office said.
Both victims lived in Pine Hills, where they were raped at night. Other details of the attacks were not available Tuesday.
Smith, who pleaded not guilty, was arrested Aug. 13 after a two-hour standoff in Pine Hills where he had barricaded himself in an apartment on Mercy Drive.
At the time, the homeless teen had been on the run for more than a month after failing to surrender to begin serving 20 months in state prison for burglarizing an elderly woman's home, records show.
His arrest happened a day after the 78-year-old victim was injured so seriously during the rape that she had to be hospitalized.
After robbing her, stealing her car keys and cutting the house's telephone lines, the rapist returned and beat her for not telling him her car would not start, according to sheriff's records.
Smith's criminal record for breaking into homes late at night dates back at least to age 12, when he was charged with armed burglary of an occupied dwelling, according to sheriff's records.
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