Night Stalker suspect nabbed
Police issued this picture of the masked man on a motorbike during their manhunt for the Night Stalker. - Daily Mail
THERE are several versions of the legend of the orang minyak (oily man).
The most popular, one as depicted in P. Ramlee’s 1956 movie Sumpah Orang Minyak, is that the creature had black powers and raped virgins.
The orang minyak would use grease over his body as a night-time camouflage.
This may be just an old wives’ tale but there is a similar case in London but with peculiar differences.
London’s Metropolitan Police believe they have cracked the 17-year-old case with the arrest of a 52-year-old father of seven.
Nicknamed Night Stalker, the assailant did not prey on young virgins and netiher did he oil his body.
Instead, his rape victims were men and women aged 68 to 93 spanning across south London. And as a disguise, he wore a mask.
He would break into their homes and subject them to horrific ordeals, sometimes for up to four hours, the UK’s Daily Mail reported.
The ‘Night Stalker’ has a distinctive pattern of behaviour, often disabling telephone lines and fuse boxes before breaking into homes.
Some of the victims were raped and sexually assaulted. Their attacker was often described as wearing a mask and waking people by shining a torch in their faces.
Since the first attacks in the early 1990s, police tried various ways to nab the ‘Night Stalker’, from surveillance to the offer of a £40,000 reward.
More than 200 raids were conducted over the 19-year period but all the efforts were in vain.
E-fits of the Night Stalker. - Daily Telegraph
The most recent burglaries suspected to be linked to the attacker took place in June.
Police had been looking for someone believed to be a gerontophile, with a sexual fixation about the elderly.
For months, surveillance teams flooded the Shirley area of Croydon at night hoping to catch the attacker in action.
Earlier this month, it emerged that detectives had also obtained more than 2,000 DNA samples from 21,500 suspects at a cost of £102,700.
The police set up Operation Minstead to find the Night Stalker and they believe their painstaking efforts have finally paid off.
On Monday morning, police arrested Delroy Grant who has been remanded until Thursday.
A police cordon outside Delroy Grant's street in south London. - Daily Mail
He is charged with five rapes, six indecent assaults and 11 burglaries that took place between 1992 and this year.
Grant is a full-time carer for his wife, who has multiple sclerosis and has been confined to a wheelchair for the past five years.
Neighbours said his wife Jennifer was a Jehovah’s Witness who goes from house to house with her husband to attract more followers. It was not clear whether he is also a Jehovah’s Witness, the Daily Mail reported.
The couple have two sons, one aged 20 and the other 11.
Grant has three sons from a previous marriage aged 33, 30 and 20 and it is believed his wife also has two twin girls from a previous relationship.
Published Nov 16, 2009
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