Crime & Safety

Police: Victim in Myrtle Street Robbery Also Sexually Assaulted

Police believe Thursday's incident is unrelated to Monday morning armed robbery in Del Ray.

The victim in an armed robbery that occurred Thursday morning on E. Myrtle Street was also sexually assaulted, according to police.

Mark Bergin of the Alexandria Police Department said at 10 a.m. a man wearing a mask covering his nose to his chin approached a 30-year-old woman while she was parking her van in the unit block of E. Myrtle Street near its intersection with Braddock Road.

The suspect showed the woman a black, semiautomatic pistol and demanded money. He then asked the woman to step out of the vehicle. The two met at the front of the van and the suspect put his arm around the woman, who handed him her cash.

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“She was touched inappropriately, which is considered sexual battery,” Bergin said.

The suspect walked away and the woman drove off and called the police.

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A Myrtle Street resident who asked not to be named said she was told the victim was a nanny dropping a child off for piano lessons in a home on the block.

Bergin said police believe Thursday’s incident is unrelated to a robbery that occurred Monday where resident Marquita Thompson and her fiancé, Miguel Crouch, were held up at gunpoint near the intersections E. Howell and Leslie avenues.

“The assault component is very different,” Bergin said.

The suspects in each incident have been described differently, Bergin said. The suspect in Thursday’s robbery and assault is described as a tall, black male with dark skin and a medium to heavy build. He was wearing a half-mask and a green reflective vest under a black hooded jacket, Bergin said.

The suspect in Monday’s armed robbery is described as a slender, light-skinned black male with “remarkable freckles,” Bergin said.

Those with information or who may have seen something in either incident are asked to call Alexandria Detective Will Oakley at 703-746-6606 or the department’s general line at 703-746-4444.


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