Man accused of assault, now charged with rape and murder of Philadelphia medical student in 2003
PHILADELPHA — A man accused of cutting people with a large knife while biking on a Philadelphia walking trail in recent weeks has been formally charged in the cold-case rape and murder of a medical student that occurred in a series of high-profile sexual assaults in Philadelphia. twenty years ago a large city park.
Elias Diaz, 46, was indicted Wednesday on murder, rape and other charges in the 2003 killing of Rebecca Park. He was ordered held without bail pending a Jan. 8 preliminary hearing. He was being held on aggravated assault and other charges in the attacks or attempted attacks in late November and early December, in which police say he used a machete blade against people on the Pennypack Park trail in northeast Philadelphia.
The Defender Association of Philadelphia, which represented him in both the 2003 case and the recent attacks, previously declined comment on all charges.
Interim Police Chief John Stanford Jr. said Diaz's DNA appeared to link him to the 2003 strangulation murder of Park in the sprawling Fairmount Park and perhaps to several other sexual assaults there. Park, 30, a fourth-year student at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine from Olney, Maryland, disappeared after going for a run in the park in July 2003. Her body was found buried under wood and leaves on a steep hill in the park, about 200 feet from the road, authorities said.
Police said the crime was linked to the April 2003 rape of a 21-year-old jogger in the park, and in October that year a 37-year-old woman managed to fend off a man who tried to rape her. In 2007, a 29-year-old woman walking on a path in Pennypack Park was sexually assaulted and robbed, police said. No charges have yet been filed in those cases.
In 2021, DNA analysis helped create a series of composite sketches of the man believed responsible for the attacks. Genealogical databases provided a link to a man named Elias Diaz, but he could not be found. Officials said the newly arrested suspect had previous contact with police, but authorities did not have his DNA until his arrest in the recent attacks.
Stanford said the two-decade-old assault cases in Fairmount Park and Park's murder had “haunted” the community and the department.