Just 24 hours after police said an elderly Greenwood woman was attacked and raped in her home, authorities in a neighboring community found a suspect.
Police arrested Ira S. Link, 42, of Beech Grove, on four felony charges: rape, burglary, criminal deviate conduct and criminal confinement. He was held at the Johnson County jail on $272,000 bond.
Link is a registered sex offender, according to the Indiana Sex and Violent Offender Registry. The registry database shows he was convicted of child molestation in St. Joseph County in 1993 and released in June.
How Link became a suspect and what he has told police during an interview have not been released.
On Saturday morning, Beech Grove police told Greenwood detectives they had a suspect in the rape investigation from Friday morning. Police went to Bethel Avenue in Beech Grove, where police from that community had detained Link.
He was brought to Greenwood, interviewed and arrested that afternoon.
On Friday morning, police said an elderly woman answered the door of her Valle Vista home, and a man forced his way inside. He attacked the woman, beat her, threatened to kill her and raped her. The attack happened about 9:30 a.m., police said.
According to reports, he used no weapon, but she was injured from the beating. The woman is older than 70 years old. She called a neighbor for help after the suspect left her home.
He left behind his jacket, police said.
The crime rattled residents in the established, older neighborhood and across the city.
Because a random rape is so rare, police originally said it could be the work of a serial rapist.
This is the second random rape case in Greenwood in 20 years.
In 2012, Shawn Corbally broke into a woman’s Greenwood apartment and repeatedly raped her at knifepoint for hours and threatened to kill her children, including a 1-year-old sleeping in bed with her.
He is serving a 165-year sentence.
