An Arlington, Virginia, man was arrested at his home Tuesday night and charged in connection with a string of sexual assaults that occurred in Georgetown in the late 2000s, authorities announced Wednesday.
Ernesto Ramon Mercado, 54, has been charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse and five counts of second-degree sexual abuse, with aggravating circumstances on all counts, after being forensically linked to five home invasion rapes that occurred in the Georgetown area between 2008 and 2012. Mercado has also been linked to a sixth sexual assault in College Park, Maryland, just off the University of Maryland campus.
“Thanks to DNA evidence from the rape kits of courageous survivors, improvements in DNA technology, and the tireless efforts of our law enforcement partners and our prosecutors, we were able to link these six rapes,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves said in a news release. “Once we had a DNA profile of the suspect, the team used every forensic tool at its disposal, as well as old-fashioned detective work, to identify the person behind this DNA profile. That hard work led to yesterday’s arrest of Ernesto Mercado.”
At the time of the sexual assaults, the then-unknown offender had been dubbed the “Georgetown-College Park Cuddler Rapist.” The five sexual assaults in D.C. took place between June 26, 2008 and Aug. 31, 2012.
“In the media reports at the time, this suspect was labeled as both the ‘College Park Cuddler’ and the ‘Georgetown Cuddler.’ Over the years, this term has only caused more harm to our victims. This man is a predator, and his intent was not to cuddle these women, but instead, his intent was to rape them, and it was only when they would wake up that the assault would end and he would flee,” said Det. Alexander Mac Bean, with the sexual assault cold case unit in the Criminal Investigations Division at MPD.
According to authorities, Mercado would break into homes in the late night or predawn hours and assault these women. In multiple assaults, the survivors reported being asleep when first assaulted and waking during the act, at which time, the attacker fled.
Mercado is believed to have acted as a Peeping Tom and stalked his victims, targeting those alone, sleeping or intoxicated, police said.
The arrest was the result of the Cold Case Sexual Assault Initiative, a joint effort between D.C. police and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to reinvestigate and close previously unsolved sexual assaults.
“For the past 16 years, our Sexual Assault Unit detectives have continued to follow up on leads and connect the cases together — looking for patterns, evidence and a suspect,” D.C. police Chief Pamela Smith said at a news conference Wednesday. “We know that people often want answers right away in cases, but our detectives never gave up, and today’s announcement speaks to their unending commitment to bring justice to victims.”
Mercado appeared in court Wednesday, where the judge ordered a preliminary hearing be scheduled for Oct. 10.
The investigation is ongoing. Anyone who was sexually assaulted or who may have information related to these or additional cases is encouraged to call the MPD at 202-727-9099 or text 50411. You can remain anonymous.
Timeline
According to court documents, Mercado was involved in at least five offenses in the Georgetown area.
Starting in 2008, the sexual predator dubbed as the “Cuddler” stalked and terrorized dormitories and homes in D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood.
Of the first incidents reported were when three victims described awaking early in the morning in 2008 to find a tall Hispanic man in their homes. Around that time, a Georgetown University spokesperson told the Georgetown Voice’s “Vox Populi” daily newspaper that the Department of Public Safety would be increasing patrols in those areas.
In another case, in June 2008, Mercado broke into a woman’s basement apartment and attempted to sexually assault her in her bed. The woman, identifiably intoxicated by police who arrived after, said the man has become “more aggressive” after kissing her neck and she tried to fight him off. He fled, running up the stairs and out the home.
“I was out with friends drinking. … I cam home around 3 a.m. and washed up and went to bed. At 5 a.m., I woke up with someone on top of me. It happened so fast I don’t know what happened. I pushed him off,” the victim said in a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) exam.
Nearly a year later, in July 2009, the victim reported she had woken up to a man have nonconsensual, violent sex with her. “Then he stopped and ran out of her room and then out of the house,” the victim said, according to court documents.
In a post on its site in August 2009, The Georgetown Voice’s editorial board said, “The rapist continues to pose a risk to women’s safety on campus and in the surrounding neighborhood.”
The 2009 SANE exam findings were found consistent with Mercado’s DNA in September.
In 2012, a woman in Northwest D.C. reported the screen to her bedroom window had been cut and she awoke to find her undergarments feeling “wet,” after returning home drunk from a night out. She “vaguely recalled someone (being) in her room but cannot give a description,” the documents read. The woman got a SANE exam performed in New York, but reported the incident to local authorities when she returned.
In a follow-up interview in 2016, the same woman recalled being in “a foggy dream state” at the time and had attempted to the push the man off of her “then seeing him walk out her door.”
SANE exam findings from all of the incidents were found to be from the same suspect after officials ran the samples through D.C.’s forensics and crime lab. Police obtained a warrant to obtain swabs of Mercado’s driver side door handle of his car and the inside of his cheek which created a DNA profile that matched.
This story is developing. Stay with WTOP for the latest.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
