Dallas police have arrested a 15-year-old boy suspected in a series of sexual assaults in Texas and Louisiana, and are investigating him in the fatal attack of a woman this week in Texas, investigators said Friday.
The teen was charged as a juvenile Thursday with three counts of aggravated sexual assault in Texas, and additional charges are pending in Louisiana, Dallas Deputy Chief Thomas Castro said.
Investigators said the teen is suspected of assaulting five women since March who reported similar attacks: a suspect knocking on their door and asking for money or work, and then forcing his way inside while brandishing a weapon.
"We confirmed him as a suspect through DNA and other evidence," Castro said. Castro said the teen also is a suspect in the recent death of a woman because of the proximity of her apartment to where the three other Dallas attacks occurred. Castro said the 23-year-old woman was texting with a friend Tuesday when someone approached her door asking to use her phone.
The person was let inside, and the friend soon lost contact with the woman. Investigators believe she was sexually assaulted before she was killed. The teen, whose name hasn't been released by police because of his age, is currently being held in a juvenile facility.
But police will seek to have him charged as an adult, Dallas Police Senior Cpl. Melinda Gutierrez said. According to investigators, three women living in the same area of Dallas were attacked in separate incidents in September and October.
Two other women were attacked in Bossier City, Louisiana — one in March and the other in April.
Each woman gave investigators a similar description of a suspect whose actions were the same from one scene to the other.
The teen was living in Dallas at the time of his arrest and was living in Bossier City when the attacks occurred there, Castro said. Bossier City is about 170 miles (273 kilometers) east of Dallas.