Police eye suspect in Center City rapist case

A possible suspect has emerged in the now three-year-old investigation into the murder of Wharton graduate student Shannon Schieber.

Philadelphia Police announced on Thursday that they are looking for a man they stopped on a trespassing complaint in Rittenhouse Square in October 1999.

The case's first major break in several years came last month when police in Fort Collins, Colo., linked a series of sexual assaults in that area to the ones in Philadelphia believed to be the work of the Center City rapist.

Because of the recent connection, police now want to re-question the trespasser because he reportedly resembled suspect sketches of the rapist and was a native of Colorado. He was a resident of Philadelphia in 1999.

Authorities have not yet released the suspect's name or picture and have cautioned that this new lead is only in the preliminary stages.

"That guy's one of many guys we've talked to," a sergeant in the Special Victims Unit of the Philadelphia Police Department said last night.

Ken Coluzzi, a former Philadelphia Police homicide detective who was involved in the case in its early stages, emphasized that going over old leads is a normal part of any investigation.

"During the course of the investigation, there [was] a tremendous amount of information that came in," said Coluzzi, now a police officer in Lower Makefield Township. "Any time new information comes in, it may spark the memory of an officer."

"You're continually backtracking and going over all the information," Coluzzi added.

Schieber's father, Sylvester Schieber, who has filed a lawsuit against the Philadelphia Police Department for what he believes was a mishandling of the investigation, said that if it turned out police had his daughter's killer in custody two years ago and let him go, "it wouldn't be the first disappointment in the case."

"We don't know the details here, but there is nothing that we could imagine at this juncture that would surprise us," Schieber said. "They've screwed it up at every turn."

Schieber, 23, was found dead in her Rittenhouse Square apartment in May 1998 after she did not show up to work or for a lunch date with her brother. Police believe her murder was the work of the Center City rapist, who allegedly sexually assaulted five women in the Rittenhouse neighborhood where Schieber lived.

Neighbors had reported hearing a struggle in her apartment at around 3 a.m., and called police, but officers left the building after knocking on Schieber's door and receiving no response.

After few leads in the case, Philadelphia Police linked Schieber's rape and murder to the Center City rapist through DNA testing. Further investigation led police to the conclusion that the Center City rapist was Schieber's killer.

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