Panty raiding rapist in Briarwood

From WPIX:

Police search for a sex assault suspect who not only attacks his victims after following them from the subway, he also tries to take his victims' underwear with him.

Right now NYPD detectives are on the hunt for a man whose composite sketch they're distributing. He is thin, six feet tall and wears dreadlocks. Investigators say that he's attempted to sexually assault three young women in two different instances in the last week. Both attacks happened in the pre-dawn hours.

Last Wednesday, October 13, the man followed a 25 year-old woman who had just gotten out of the Parsons Blvd. F-train station around 4:20 A.M. After trying to talk with the woman a couple of blocks from the station, cops say, the man grabbed her from behind, started trying to choke her, forced her to the ground, reached under her dress, removed her panties and fled after she fought back.

Then, last Sunday, October 17, he tried the same thing with two women who had just left the Van Wyck- Briarwood Station in Kew Gardens. Investigators say the man tried to talk to the 25 and 28 year-olds a few blocks from the station, grabbed them and forced them into a backyard where he fondled them and tried to remove one of the women's underwear. The women fought back, and the man fled.

The attacks happened before daylight, and some women out alone in the neighborhood in the early morning hours on Wednesday told PIX 11 News that catching this suspect is vital. They said that to some extent they feel helpless.