Police investigate weekend crimes

By John W. Goodwin Jr.

Police are looking for a rapist with a reddish-brown beard.

GIRARD — Police are investigating a rape, an aggravated robbery and a juvenile assault, all reported separately over the weekend.

A 36-year-old woman city told police she was walking near her Elruth Court home at 8 p.m. Friday when a man grabbed her by her hair and forced her into a nearby wooded area.

In the woods, he produced a small handgun and told the woman she would not be harmed if she followed orders. He then made the woman perform a sex act.

Reports said the rapist then told the woman to lie face down in the grass and not move or call police. The woman told him she would comply because he could be one of her neighbors — to which he simply said, “I could.”

The man also reportedly told the woman she was not the first.

The woman eventually walked home and called police.

The man is described as between 23 and 27 years old, between 5 feet 11 inches and 6 feet 1 inch tall, and a little more than 200 pounds with a large muscular build and a reddish-brown beard.

Just before noon Saturday police responded to a frantic call from employees at the Girard branch of the U.S. Postal Service. The caller said a woman was in the building — less than a block away from the police station — carrying a knife.

According to police reports, Amber Nichole DiCiesare, 20, who police list as a transient with no address, entered the post office and asked the clerk what would happen if someone had a knife. DiCiesare then reportedly produced a knife, said she wanted to hurt someone and told the clerk, “I want everything you got.”

The clerk ran from the counter and called police. Police talked DiCiesare into dropping the knife. She is charged with aggravated robbery and is being held in Trumbull County Jail.

Police also filed a report Sunday concerning a 9-year-old boy who held a knife on a 7-year-old girl.

The Prospect Street girl told police two boys were riding bikes on Prospect Street, and one fell. The 8-year-old boy who fell, she said, went to his East Kline Street home and brought back a knife, which he handed to the other, older boy, who listed the same address and last name. The older boy told the girl to back up and held the knife to her.

Police confiscated an unsharpened folding knife.

jgoodwin@vindy.com