Today's episode discusses difficult topics including murder and sexual assault.

If these are triggers for you, please listen with caution.

This is part two of a series of episodes about women who were assaulted by the Center City

rapist between 1997 and 1999 in Philadelphia, and women who are attacked by the same

man in Fort Collins, Colorado two years later.

If you haven't yet listened to part one, please pause this episode,

listen to the first half in episode one twenty-three

and then return here.

23 year old student Shannon Sheber was murdered in the early morning hours of May 7th

1998.

At the time of her death the Philadelphia Police Department hadn't yet connected the assaults that occurred before Shannon's death.

Initially, the police investigated Shannon Sheber's murder as an isolated crime.

Retired Philadelphia Police detective Chuck Boyle told People magazine that for a time

the police didn't realize they were looking for a serial rapist.

That's understandable.

Without the DNA connections to prior crimes in Philly,

crimes that weren't actually coded as crimes or specifically sexual assaults,

there was no way the detectives running this investigation could make that connection.

Detectives worked relentlessly to solve Shannon Sheber's murder, and they started as you might

expect who among Shannon's circle might want to do her harm.

She didn't have a boyfriend, although there were certainly young men around the Penn

campus who took an interest in Shannon. One man in particular had

...