CAPE MAN, CHARGED WITH RAPE OF TWO WOMEN, PLEADS NOT GUILTY

JACKSON -- A Cape Girardeau man pled not guilty to two rapes that occurred this week involving women who said they were interviewing for an apartment cleaning job.

Ronald Monroe Brumback, 48, of 2568 Lisa, Apt. 5, pled not guilty before Judge Gary Kamp Thursday. He had been arrested by Cape Girardeau police Tuesday.

The first woman who had been raped had been contacted by the suspect to clean his apartment, police said. The two women were friends, Sgt. Carl Kinnison said, and the one who was raped Tuesday had been aware of her friend's rape on Friday.

Just after midnight on Tuesday, a 20-year-old woman told police she had gone to Brumback's apartment for an interview. The woman had initiated the interview by calling Brumback, and then drove her car to his apartment. She reported that while she was there, she was raped.

A 22-year-old woman had reported being raped under similar circumstances on Friday.

The woman had placed an advertisement offering to clean homes and apartments. A man answered her ad and called her at her residence to arrange for her to look at his apartment.

The man picked up the woman from her residence at about 11:45 p.m. on Friday, with the intention of showing her his apartment on the west side of Cape Girardeau, police said.

She told police she looked at the apartment, had a wine cooler to drink and then went to use the bathroom.

When she emerged from the bathroom, the man was standing in the doorway wearing only a T-shirt, police said. The woman said he then assaulted her.

The man then drove the woman home, Kinnison said.

Brumback is being held in the Cape Girardeau City Jail in lieu of $25,000 bond.