A St. Paul man is charged in three East Side sexual assaults of women whom he met online, with the first attack occurring in 2023 when he was 16 years old.
DNA ties Rakai Eugene Davis, 18, to the assaults, according to a criminal complaint and juvenile petition filed this week in Ramsey County District Court. A warrant was issued. He was not in custody as of Wednesday afternoon and is “considered a high risk to public safety,” the complaint says.
Rakai Eugene Davis (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)
Police arrested Davis on Dec. 26 while executing a search warrant of his home in connection with the third sexual assault, which happened Dec. 9 behind a garage in the 1700 block of Clear Avenue. He lives nearby, according to a complaint filed Dec. 27.
Court records show Davis pleaded not guilty and was released from the Ramsey County jail on Jan. 27 after posting a $250,000 bond.
According to St. Paul police and the complaint, a 29-year-old woman called 911 and reported she’d been sexually assaulted at gunpoint by a man she met online.
She told police she did not know the name of her attacker, they had been messaging for several days through TextNow, and agreed to meet at a location he provided.
When she arrived on Clear Avenue, a man directed her to walk between houses toward the back alley. He grabbed her key chain, which had mace attached to it, then pointed a gun at her and started groping her. She told him that he “didn’t have to do this” and she had money.
She told police she thought he was going to kill her and pleaded with him not to hurt her. She said she tried to use her phone to text for help, but the man “snatched it” from her and then raped her, the complaint says.
Investigators identified Davis as a suspect through a TextNow number registered to his email account. She later picked him out in a photo lineup as the attacker.
A Glock BB gun and other items were seized during the search of Davis’ home, the complaint says. He was taken into custody and opted not to speak with police.
Earlier assault
Just more than a month earlier, on Nov. 3, police were called to the same area along Clear Avenue after a 38-year-old woman reported she had been assaulted and then raped in a garage by man she met on a dating website who said his name was “Michael.”
She said he was “saying all the right things and appeared to be a good person” so she agreed to meet him, according to the complaint filed Tuesday. She drove to the Clear Avenue address where he met her, giving the appearance that he lived there.
The man, who police later identified as Davis, told her to follow him around the back of the house. Once there, he hit her in the back of the head with a handgun.
The complaint says the man then pulled her into the garage, while groping her. He tried to rape her and then directed her to give him oral sex, the complaint says.
The suspect told the woman she could go but had to leave her purse behind. He took her Rolex watch she’d been wearing.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension compared Davis’ DNA sample to cheek swabs collected from the victim and concluded the major DNA profile matched Davis, the complaint says.
Davis’ DNA was also matched to the forensics swabs collected from the victim of the Dec. 9 sexual assault and to DNA swabs collected from a May 2023 sexual assault victim.
2023 assault
Davis was charged Wednesday with raping a 28-year-old woman between two garages in the 1700 Cottage Avenue in the early morning hours of May 27, 2023, when he was 16, according to police and a juvenile petition.
An officer was sent to the area around 5:15 a.m. after the woman reported she’d been sexually assaulted by a man she believed to be around 19 years old. She said she started talking with him on a dating app the day before and agreed to meet to “chill and smoke.”
She did not know his name, but did have a cellphone number for him.
After they met in front of a Cottage Avenue house, she and her attacker walked to the alley, where he began to “feel her up,” she told police. He then found the woman’s knife that she used for protection and took it from her. He pulled out his own knife.
The woman asked him not to hurt her as she has three kids, the petition says. He said that he was not going to hurt her. He then put on a condom and raped her.
Video from a home surveillance system showed the assailant leaving the area through a backyard of a home in the 1700 block of Clear Avenue.
“I thought he was gonna kill me when he was done … stab me or shoot me,” the woman told a nurse during a sexual assault exam, according to the petition. “But he let me go.”
She later told an investigator while at the hospital that she “did what the male suspect asked of her out of fear,” the petition says.
On Feb. 11, results were reported by the BCA, showing a match between the DNA profile from the sperm found in the sexual assault kit from the woman and the DNA sample from Davis.
Davis is charged in the three cases with one count each of first-degree criminal sexual conduct while armed with a dangerous weapon and first-degree criminal sexual conduct while causing a victim to have a reasonable fear of imminent great bodily harm.
Minnesota public courts records show Davis has no criminal convictions.
Related Articles
Washington County man found dead in Hastings identified as missing person William ‘Ike’ Eickholt
Seven Chilean men are charged with burglarizing the homes of Mahomes, Burrow and other star athletes
Karen Read murder case: Feds involved as judge shares ‘grave’ concerns
St. Paul man who accidentally shot 19-year-old friend spared prison time
A$AP Rocky dives into Rihanna’s arms as not guilty verdict is read at felony assault trial
Leave a Reply