NEW HAVEN, Conn., March 5 (UPI) -- The man suspected of being the "East Coast Rapist" attempted suicide Saturday while in custody in New Haven, Conn., authorities said.
New Haven police spokesman Joe Avery said Aaron H. Thomas, 39, tried to hang himself in his jail cell, The Hartford Courant reported. Thomas was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital for treatment and then returned to jail Saturday night, Avery said.
The U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force took Thomas into custody Friday and he was being held on $1 million bond pending a Monday court hearing.
"[He] is the East Coast Rapist," Lt. Julie Johnson, spokeswoman for the New Haven Police Department, said at a news conference Saturday.
Avery had said Friday detectives from Connecticut, Maryland and Virginia were questioning Thomas about 17 violent attacks on women between 1997 and 2009, including one in New Haven, where Thomas, a trucker, now lives.
Investigators acting on a tip had tracked Thomas for several days and followed him to Superior Court in New Haven, where he had a court date on a larceny charge. Thomas was smoking and tossed a cigarette butt on the ground near the courthouse.
Authorities retrieved the cigarette butt and rushed it through DNA testing. The tests determined the DNA on the cigarette butt matched DNA left by the rapist in Virginia.
Authorities in Prince William County, Va., said they have issued an arrest warrant for Thomas, suspected of a rape there.
DNA evidence in each of the reported rapes indicated the same person committed all of the assaults.
