ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Authorities say a man arrested in Colorado is suspected of raping 11 women in New Mexico and Texas over a 15-year span and, more recently, trying to kill a Colorado police officer.
Authorities in Albuquerque and Pueblo, Colo., are checking to see if Robert Howard Bruce, 47, of Pueblo might have been involved in other unsolved crimes.
Albuquerque Police Department spokesman John Walsh says Bruce was tied to the Albuquerque rapes -- which go back as far as 1991 -- after his DNA matched one case.
Walsh says police think Bruce may have committed crimes from 1991 to 2000 in Albuquerque and a 2006 rape in Austin.
The Pueblo County Sheriff's Department in Colorado arrested Bruce on Oct. 6 after a police officer found a 30-pound propane tank rigged to pump gas into his home.
Detectives say Bruce targeted college co-eds. Police had dubbed him the ether man rapist because the attacker would always use a chemical-soaked cloth to subdue his victims before sexually assaulting them.
Austin police believe that was the same method Bruce used in the only rape he's linked to in Central Texas. It happened in May 2006.
"The guy is pretty much not on our radar at all. We were able to tell through a hotel/motel list able to locate that he did stay at the Marriott in the 5600 block, checked in on the 24th and checked out on the 25th. The distance from that to the back of her door was probably 1,000 feet," said Det. Scott Stanfield, APD Sex Crimes Unit.
Detectives say it's possible Bruce is responsible for another sexual assault in Austin prior to the one in May, but there is no physical evidence linking Bruce to the case.
