A New York man has been charged with sexually assaulting a homeless Jacksonville woman, and police say he’s behind a southside attack as well.
Jacksonville Police say 26-year-old Michael Lourcey met the woman at a McDonald’s on Phillips and Emerson earlier this month. The two talked and returned to a vacant building on the corner where the woman would stay.
“As she was bending over to pick something up, the male struck her in the head, sexually battered her, he beat her quite severely,” says Chief Tom Hackney.
He then walked away and the woman was able to get a passerby to call 911. She gave a suspect description and, later that day, Lourcey was charged in the attack.
“It was that day that we realized where he lived and the potential connection with the fact that this could be related to our Timberlin Park case,” Hackney says.
At the end of January, a female jogger was attacked from behind while she was running in the Timberlin Park Apartments area. He attempted to drag her in to the woods, but she escaped him twice. Police have since been actively searching for the attacker and had released a sketch and a style of hoodie they believe he was wearing.
That hoodie was similar to the one Lourcey was wearing when attacking the homeless woman, and DNA testing through the FDLE confirmed DNA from Lourcey and the hoodie matched the Timberlin Park case.
Lourcey was currently on probation for robbery in New York, although he is living with family in the Timberlin Park area.
Hackney says they have reached out to police in New York to speak about Lourcey and his prior actions.
“With his [Lourcey’s] method that he operated being so similar, we’ve actually had some conversations with the folks in New York where he was from to look at any unsolved cases that they may have of a similar nature,” Hackney says.
He says they have not tied him to any other cases at this time. Despite probation out of New York, Hackney tells me Lourcey will be tried and held here in Jacksonville.
