October 22, 2023
THOM CARROLL/for PhillyVoice
Philadelphia police arrested 30-year-old Michael Henry for allegedly raping two women at gunpoint in the Kingsessing section of the city last weekend.
Philadelphia police have arrested a suspect in connection with a pair of sexual assaults committed at gunpoint in the Kingsessing section of Southwest Philly last weekend. Michael Henry, a 30-year-old Philadelphia resident, will be charged with rape, robbery and other related offenses, police said.
Henry was apprehended after investigators scoured surveillance video and received multiple tips following the assaults. Police said he is believed to be a suspect in other sexual assaults and at least one other robbery.
Last weekend's pair of armed sexual assaults occurred within a few blocks of one another and both victims described being raped by a man wearing a blue mask, leading police to believe one person was likely responsible for both incidents. In one case, the victim said she was raped at gunpoint after being stopped at a traffic light.
"It's just a horrible, horrible, horrible incident for anybody to go through," Capt. Margo Alleyne-Parker, commanding officer of the Special Victims Unit, said of the assaults during a press conference last week.
The first assault happened at 3 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 14 when a man approached a woman while her car was stopped at a traffic light at 55th Street and Kingsessing Avenue and demanded money at gunpoint, police said. The woman gave him $20, at which point the man entered the car and told her to drive to 49th and St. Bernard streets, where he sexually assaulted her in the vehicle. The man then drove the woman to an ATM, coerced into withdrawing more money and then left with the cash.
The second assault occurred at 5 p.m. on Sunday near Springfield Avenue and Paxon Street – just a few blocks from the site of the first incident. In that case, a man approached a woman from behind, pointed a silver handgun at her and demanded money, police said. After the woman gave him $25 and some prescription medication, the man forced the woman into an alleyway behind Paxon Street, sexually assaulted her and fled the area, police said.
