Serial Rapist Who Targeted Homeless Women Gets 28 Years to Life

by Indy · 2010-10-13 07:10:00 UTC
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In 2008, a pattern of brutal sexual assaults on homeless women in South Seattle's Industrial area began emerging from police reports. Victims described their attacker as a fat bald man with rotting teeth. All of the victims were homeless and actively using drugs, which gave their attacker an avenue in which to approach them. He offered drugs to the women before leading them to secluded areas to beat and rape them.

There is an area known as "The Tubes" located south of Seattle at the intersection of South Spokane Street and 2nd Avenue South where many homeless people live. They often sleep on pallets. One victim had fallen asleep on hers after taking some heroin offered to her. She woke up later to find a man on top of her holding a knife to her throat saying that he would kill her if she didn't remove her clothes.

Another woman who had been living out of the abandoned concrete tubes turned herself into the police even though she had outstanding warrants for her arrest. She too had been brutally assaulted by the same individual but wanted the attacks against women to stop. Even though she admits to being a cocaine and heroin user, she and the other homeless women are no less deserving of justice.

The Seattle Police Department began its investigation into the crimes and eventually pinned the attacks on one man, Reginald Breaux. He was captured in January 2009 and sentenced just last week after pleading guilty to first-degree rape with a deadly weapon, second-degree rape and attempted first-degree rape.

This is an extreme example, but it shows the kind of dangers that women — and men — face when living on the streets. One study (and there are many similar ones) found that 13 percent of homeless women have been raped in the past 12 months.

Breaux's attacks were notoriously bloody, so it was no surprise that even though in a statement to the court he apologized for his actions and pleaded with the judge to impose a lesser sentence, he was given the maximum instead, 28 years with the stipulation for indefinite jail time should he continue to be a threat.

Photo credit: Angie Linder

Indy is a single mother of two, working on a degree and occasionally teaching herself how to repair cars. She has been homeless since 2004.
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