Comatose Ex-Con Is Suspect In Tulsa Serial Sexual Assaults

Ahead of a Thursday scheduled news conference, police sources told News On 6 they have identified a suspect in the recent series of sexual assaults in Tulsa.

The source said a previous News On 6 story helped police track down the alleged predator, who put Tulsa women on edge for weeks.

A TPD source said DNA evidence found in one of the assaults matches that of Desmond Campbell, 30, an ex-convict who is comatose in a Tulsa hospital. Campbell is considered a suspect in seven attacks that have taken place across midtown over the last month.

Campbell crashed his vehicle on Interstate 44 on Sunday morning and has been in the hospital ever since, the source said.

News On 6 covered the wreck, in which Campbell hit an I-44 and 41st Street exit sign head on with a Honda Civic just before 6 a.m. on Sunday.

An Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper said he thought the cause of the crash was due to Campbell being sleepy. Campbell was taken by EMSA to a Tulsa hospital in critical condition and has been in a coma.

A woman at 11th Street and Memorial Road was attacked about 4 miles from the crash site just a few minutes earlier, according to previous reports.

"OHP thought they just had an accident and that was it," Tulsa Police Chief Chuck Jordan said. "It was worked as an accident. When we got info back from OSBI and we got his name, that's when we tracked down he was in that wreck."

7/3/2014 Related Story: Records Show Tulsa Sexual Assault Suspect No Stranger To Crimes Against Women

Court records show Campbell was released from prison in late April after serving time for attempted kidnapping (2002) and attempted robbery (2006) in Oklahoma County. Both crimes  involved women who were alone late at night, and court documents obtained by News On 6 show one of the women said she would have been raped if she hadn't fought off Campbell and screamed.

A woman who was raped on June 27 in midtown near Fourth and Pittsburg helped police make a facial composite of her attacker, based on her memory.

Most of the victims were older women or senior citizens who live alone. Even though some victims' descriptions of their assailant differed from each other, police said the attacks are connected because of similar comments the man made to each of his victims. At least two of the women were raped, others said the predator rubbed himself on them.

7/3/2014 Related Story: Victim Of Tulsa Sexual Attacker: 'I Am A Very Strong, Brave Person'

Police have said the difference in the descriptions is not surprising given the traumatic events the women had been through coupled with the low lighting in overnight hours. Some described the assaulter as white, American Indian or Hispanic and as a light-skinned black man. In some of the attacks, victims said the man had his face covered.

Special Coverage: Tulsa Sexual Assaults Investigation

Here are the dates and addresses for eight assaults in Tulsa since June 5. The June 6 assault, Jordan said on Thursday, is not believed to be related to the others as previously thought. The victim was much younger and farther south than the others.

• June 29, 2014 - 11th and Memorial
  
• June 27, 2014 - 4th and Pittsburg
  
• June 20, 2014 – 45th Place and Peoria
• June 19, 2014 – 11th and Yale
• June 11, 2014 – 15th and Denver
• June 9, 2014 – 42nd and Detroit
• *June 6, 2014 - 71st and Yale *police now are ruling this one out as being linked.
  
• June 5, 2014 - 45th Place and Peoria

You can click above to watch the news conference with TPD and the video of our previous reporting on the Sunday car crash on I-44. If you are viewing this story through one of our free apps, you can access those videos in the "videos" section.