Police seek suspect in murder, rape

Posted on 14. May, 2008 by Derek Bargeld in Hidden Crimes, Race

He didn’t act like someone who minutes earlier might have killed Philadelphia resident Edgar Rosas Gutierrez execution-style in Bensalem.

Instead, the suspect appeared calm and nonchalant in a silent security video taken by a New Jersey motel’s camera.

Wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates cap, he rested his head on the Comfort Inn’s counter. He then rifled through his pockets and counted out several bills from a large wad. He gestured with his hands to himself and to the balding, overnight hotel employee as he spoke.     

He was negotiating for a cheaper motel room rate, police said, because he planned to stay only a few hours to rape a woman whom he had just raped in a stolen car.

“That’s how cold this guy is,” Bensalem Public Safety Director Fred Harran said Tuesday after the video was released.

“He just killed somebody and raped somebody,” Harran added. “And now he’s haggling the price of a hotel room and he’s about to rape again. I’m not even sure he’s a human being.”

The suspect in Sunday’s carjacking/murder/rape is still at large, Harran said. He said the crime spree, which spanned from Philadelphia to Bensalem to New Jersey, appears to be random.

The suspect had carjacked Gutierrez and his girlfriend, who is 41 and not being identified, at about 3:40 a.m. Sunday outside of Jalapeno Joes in Philadelphia. The after-hours club is on Castor Avenue near Wyoming Avenue in Philadelphia’s Juniata section.

After carjacking the couple, the suspect drove to Bensalem and killed Gutierrez, 32, leaving his body on an exit ramp that links northbound Route 1 and eastbound Street Road.

The suspect then raped the woman repeatedly before arriving at the Comfort Inn in Lawrenceville and afterward, according to police.    MORE>>>