Suspected Craigslist Rapist Shoots Self, Police Say

A man suspected of raping at least nine women in Prince George's County, many of whom he met through the popular Web site Craigslist, shot himself in the head yesterday while barricaded inside a Hyattsville apartment building, Prince George's police said.

Maj. Daniel Dusseau, head of the police department's major crimes unit, identified the suspect as Mark Antonio Humphries, 33, of the 4100 block of Suitland Road in Suitland. Dusseau said Humphries had been taken to a hospital and was listed in critical condition.

Police say they think Humphries attacked at least nine women, surfing Craigslist and popular chat rooms to set up dates with professional escorts. When women arrived expecting a client, they instead found a masked rapist who carried out his attacks in stairwells, dark corners and, most recently, in hotel rooms, authorities said.

Most of the women worked as escorts, Dusseau said. "They advertised online, and when he showed up, he raped them at gunpoint and sometimes took their personal items," he said.

The rapes began in August but were not linked until early this year, when detectives began noting similarities.

In February, after a College Park woman reported that she was raped in a stairwell in a Suitland apartment building, police publicly warned women soliciting sex online that a serial rapist might be behind that attack and more than five others.

The College Park woman told police that she had met a man in a chat room and agreed to meet him at the apartment building. When she arrived, a man with a gun assaulted her as she walked up the stairs, she told them.

Dusseau said detectives zeroed in on Humphries in recent weeks and obtained an arrest warrant Sunday, after a July 14 assault in Clinton. In recent days, Humphries had been on the run, aware that police were searching for him, Dusseau said.

Yesterday, detectives learned that Humphries was probably holed up in an apartment building in the 4200 block of Oglethorpe Street in Hyattsville, Dusseau said. Officers knocked on the door, but no one answered. Thinking Humphries was inside nonetheless, they began setting up a barricade when they heard a gunshot inside the apartment.

Officers entered and found Humphries wounded from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot to the head, Dusseau said.

"We've been investigating these crimes all along and had been able to narrow and narrow our focus," he said. "We gathered enough information that we were confident we had the right suspect."

Listings on Craigslist, a Web site providing community bulletin boards and classified ads, have led to crimes before. On Long Island, N.Y., a suspected pimp was accused of advertising sex services on the Web site. In Idaho, a man was convicted after he used Craigslist to lure an intended rape victim to a park with the promise of a free iPod.