Thursday, 4:30 PM
Man arrested in 2003 rapes in Westborough, Hopkinton
Marcelo Mota has been charged with a series of rapes in Boston's western suburbs and New Jersey.
By John R. Ellement and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff
A man has been arrested in connection with three high-profile rapes in Hopkinton and Westborough in 2003 in which a perpetrator broke into the victims’ homes and threatened them with guns and knives, authorities said.
Marcelo Mota, 28, was caught in New Jersey over the weekend after authorities said they matched his fingerprints to a print left on the banister at the scene of an assault Aug. 14, 2003, at a Hopkinton apartment in which a woman fought off her attacker. The assault, which came after two other women had been raped in a little more than a week, incited panic as police searched neighborhoods with dogs trying to track down the perpetrator.
"We allege that this defendant preyed on these unsuspecting women and in the process caused many residents of the Metro West community to live in fear that they might be next," Middlesex District Attorney Gerald T. Leone Jr. said in a statement.
Mota, a former Framingham resident, had been living in Delran, N.J. He was arrested by the Burlington County Sheriff's Office when authorities matched his fingerprints to the one taken from the Hopkinton crime scene, according to the release.
Authorities said that when Mota was in custody this weekend, he admitted attacking the woman in Hopkinton and confessed to several rapes, including two in Westborough in 2003 and several other crimes in New Jersey, according to the release. He is scheduled to be arraigned today in New Jersey. It is not clear when he will be extradited to Massachusetts.
"This was a frustrating case for the Westborough Police Department," said Chief Alan Gordon. "Any time you take a cold case and move it into the solved column, it's good. I speak for the entire department in hoping that the arrest is some comfort to the victims and the community as a whole."
The first attack occurred Aug. 6 when a man broke into a woman’s townhouse at the Windsor Ridge Apartments in Westborough while she was sleeping and raped her at gunpoint.
A week later, another woman was attacked in her Westborough home. The perpetrator broke into her apartment at The Village at Walker Meadow, threatened her with a knife and a gun, and raped her.
The next night, a man broke into an apartment at the Indian Brook Townhomes in Hopkinton and assaulted a woman at knifepoint. It was where prosecutors allege that Mota left fingerprints that would ultimately lead to his arrest.
