Fourth rape in one week reported in Cape

Another rape was reported to Cape Girardeau police Friday, making the fourth attack to be reported within a week.

Police say the four reports are not related and the women were acquainted in some way with the suspects.

The most recent report resulted in an arrest Friday. Donald Lee Yeager, 36, of Cape Girardeau was charged with forcible rape and sexual assault after a 26-year old Cape Girardeau woman told police he raped her in his car, near his residence at 7 N. Benton, Apt. 1. Yeager remains in the county jail in lieu of $50,000 bail.

"The victim knows the guy," patrolman Jason Selzer said. "He came by to give her a ride to see her boyfriend at a restaurant and instead he takes her by his house."

The woman told police Yeager first asked her to kiss him, but she refused. He pulled the reclining release on her car seat, forced her back and raped her, officer Richard Couch reported in a probable cause affidavit.

After the incident, the woman said Yeager got out of the car and asked her to go up on his back porch. When he went around a wall, she fled down Independence Street, only to be followed by the suspect in his car.

The woman screamed at a passing vehicle for help, Couch said. The vehicle stopped, she got in and the driver took her to the police station.

At the police station, the woman complained of pain around her ribs. She was treated at Southeast Missouri Hospital and later released, Selzer said.

The three other incidents were reported to police earlier this week, but no charges have been filed.

Another 26-year-old woman reported being raped at a residence on South Lorimer. She also said she knew her attacker, Selzer said.

The woman told police the rape happened on Sept. 13, but she did not report it until Tuesday. She did not provide police with any personal information about the perpetrator, Lt. Ike Hammonds said.

Hammonds said it is not unusual for a victim to make a report and then not provide identifying details about the suspect if she knows him.

A 16-year-old girl told police she had gone to a party Sept. 13 for a college-aged group and met a man who took her to an apartment at an unknown location and raped her that night.

A 14-year-old girl reported she was raped on a gravel road at an unknown location by someone she met at another party on Monday night.

"We're calling these 'acquaintance rapes' because the victims either knew, or had just met, their alleged attackers," Selzer said.

Police have suspects in at least two of these cases, all of which are still under investigation.

Most rape victims know their attackers in some way, said Tammy Gwaltney, director of the Southeast Missouri Network against Sexual Violence.

"Historically, if you look at the statistics of sexual assaults, 95 percent of the time the victim knew the perpetrator," Gwaltney said. "Society likes to think it's the stranger in the bushes out there committing most of the rapes, but it's far more likely going to be the person who knows us and has access to us."

mwells@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160