Stranger arrested after 75-year-old woman sexually assaulted at 4S Ranch home

A 75-year-old woman was sexually assaulted in her 4S Ranch home Thursday morning, and a suspect — a stranger to the victim — was arrested hours later, a San Diego County sheriff’s sergeant said.

Around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, a man knocked on the door of her Carmel Valley Road home and asked the woman if she might need to wash her dogs. The dogs were in the front yard of the property, Sgt. Marcello Orsini said on Friday.

“The two began talking and the man was eventually invited into the home,” Orsini said in a news release.

Once inside the residence, the stranger sexually assaulted the victim. The woman’s caretaker, who was also inside the home, stopped the attack, Orsini said. The man jumped into a car and fled.

Sheriff’s deputies from the sheriff’s 4S Ranch substation and the sheriff’s elder fraud/abuse unit investigated. They identified a suspect by the vehicle the attacker drove in, as well as a series of photographs.

Less than eight hours later, deputies contacted the suspect, a 52-year-old man, when he arrived at his Solana Beach home. Orsini said the man was driving the same car the attacker used to flee the incident.

The suspect was booked into the Vista Detention Center on suspicion of sexual assault and elder abuse.