Man charged in Peninsula sexual assaults following home invasions
Authorities have charged a man in two home burglaries and sexual assaults that occurred just a mile and a half apart from each other in San Mateo County.
In a press release on Friday, the Redwood City Police Department said that its officers and San Mateo County Sheriff's deputies had arrested a suspect this week in two separate incidents in neighboring cities.
During the early morning hours of July 5, Redwood City police officers responded to a home on Jackson Avenue, just east of Jefferson Avenue in a neighborhood south of downtown Redwood City. Investigators learned that a man, later identified as 30-year-old Redwood City resident Jose Manuel Gonzalez Cruz, had broken into the victims' home while they were sleeping and sexually assaulted a woman living there before fleeing, police said.
With the help of witness interviews, neighborhood canvasses, surveillance video collection, forensic evidence, and other investigative leads, detectives located Cruz on Tuesday, the department said. He was found just two blocks from the site of the break-in on 400 block of Vera Avenue between Clinton and Cleveland streets.
Cruz had previously been identified as a possible suspect in a separate investigation by the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, Redwood City police said. In that case, Sheriff's deputies were called on May 10 to a home on Walnut Street in San Carlos west of Eaton Avenue where a man broke in and sexually assaulted a woman living there before fleeing.
The suspect was not known to the residents in either case.
A joint investigation between the two law enforcement agencies eventually led to the identification of Cruz as a suspect in both incidents, authorities said.
On Friday, the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office filed charges against Cruz from both investigations, including assault with the intent to commit a sexual offense during the commission of a first-degree burglary, attempted first-degree burglary, indecent exposure, and peeking or prying while loitering.
Anyone with information related to the Redwood City investigation, or who believes they may have had contact with Cruz under similar circumstances, is encouraged to contact the Redwood City Police Department Investigations Bureau at (650) 780-7100. Anyone with information related to the San Carlos investigation is encouraged to contact the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office at (650) 363-4911.
