Police – NBC 6 South Florida
More than a decade after a woman was followed and raped by a man after getting off a bus in southwest Miami-Dade, a chance encounter with the alleged suspect has led to his arrest, police said.
The victim, who’s now 34, had been riding the bus the night of July 20, 2012, when she got off at her stop.
A man who she didn’t know held the door for her and then followed her as she walked toward her complex in the area of Southwest 208th Street and Southwest 143rd Court around 11:30 p.m.
The woman told police she crossed the street a few times, “zigzagging” to avoid the man, who continued to follow her.
As she was entering the entrance of her community, the man approached her from behind, put her in a chokehold and dragged her near a wall as she repeatedly begged him not to kill her, an arrest report said.
“Don’t worry, I just want to f— you!” the man responded, according to the report.
The man removed her clothes and forced her to perform a sex act on him, then pinned her down and raped her before she was eventually able to run away and call police, the report said.
The case was investigated and “all leads were exhausted” but it remained open and unsolved, the report said.
But on Wednesday, the victim spotted the man at a motel in Cutler Bay and called authorities.
Police arrived and took 59-year-old Ralph John Davis into custody.
Using a photo lineup, the woman identified Davis as the man who sexually battered her when she was 22, the report said.
Davis was taken into custody and “provided a self-serving statement admitting he traveled on the same bus number ’38’ as the victim on the incident day,” the report said.
Police booked Davis into jail on two counts of sexual battery. He was also charged with grand theft of a vehicle after police said he had a car that had been reported stolen out of Broward.
Florida Department of Corrections records showed Davis was released from prison last year after being convicted of grand theft of a motor vehicle.
Hepreviously served prison time for convictions on grand theft, forgery and grand theft of a motor vehicle, records showed.
In court Thursday, Miami-Dade Judge Mindy Glazer set Davis’ bond at $125,000 on the sexual battery charges.
