Texas serial rapist is targeting young men

Houston: A rapist targeting young men in a Texas refinery town has struck at least five times since April, stalking each victim in advance to make sure he's home alone.

Police in Baytown, 25 miles east of Houston, say the victims are in their late teens or early twenties and live with their parents. The attacker breaks into the young man's home, or surprises him near the front door and forces him inside. He sexually assaults the victim at gunpoint, sometimes wields a knife, then demands money or valuables.

"He's always been careful to make sure no one else is home when he confronts them," Baytown Police Captain Roger Clifford said. "There have been no witnesses." While cases of serial rapists targeting women are well-documented, reports of a serial rapist targeting men are far less common.

Light-skinned black

The assaults started in April and have occurred every 30 to 60 days. Investigators are working with the FBI to develop a profile of the attacker, described as a light-skinned black male who is 18 to 21 years old, 5 feet 6 inches to 6 feet tall, and weighs about 100 kg. The victims are white and "fairly identical in stature," Clifford said. "He's bigger and can dominate them."

Women who have been raped are often reluctant to come forward for fear of being ostracised or victimised again; for men those feelings can be even more amplified, police say.

In the Baytown attacks, police suspect even more young men have been assaulted, but they are ashamed to come forward. Some of the five known victims told police about the attacks after initially reporting a robbery, Clifford said.

"When you're talking about the humiliation of being dominated and threatened with your life to perform sexual acts, it's understandable."