The police were called to Rydskogen in Linköping at 4.30pm last Wednesday after a woman was attacked by an unknown man.
– We arrive and form an idea of what has happened and classify it as attempted rape, says Marcus Anefur, the police’s press officer.
The crime investigators then discovered patterns to two different alarms received the day before.
– On Tuesday evening, two women were sexually assaulted in the same area, says Marcus Anefur.
The police suspect that it is the same perpetrator in the three sex crimes that took place within 24 hours.
– There are things that indicate that, but we don’t want to confirm it. Modus in these cases, roughly speaking, is about the same. We have information that we do not want to share at this time.
– We have searched for the perpetrator but have not been able to locate anyone. We have spent a lot of time on the cases and will continue to do so.
Exercising women affected
The three victims are women between the ages of 20 and 45 who were out exercising in the green area. The police now want to warn people, mainly women, from being alone in the area. This when it is suspected that it may be the same perpetrator – who may strike again.
– We don’t think you need to be influenced, you should be able to live your life. But it is lone women who have been affected and to avoid giving the perpetrator an opportunity to commit crimes like this, you should not stay there by yourself in the near future, preferably do it with someone you know if you want to exercise there.
The police also urges the public to immediately call the command center if you react to something or someone.
– If you are staying in this area or other areas, we would like to draw attention to the fact that if you make observations of individuals who are behaving differently in any way, if you get such a gut feeling, you should contact us immediately on 112 to avoid delay. We’d rather have too many checks than too few.