This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Police seek a man who wore a Halloween mask while allegedly raping a female University of Utah student at gunpoint in a school parking lot Monday.
Campus police said the suspect is 6 feet tall and was wearing all black and a Grim Reaper-style mask when he threatened the student after she entered her vehicle near the Merrill Engineering Building.
U. police Sgt. Garth Smith said he wasn't sure whether the man was already inside the woman's vehicle when she entered, but that he forced her into the back seat and sexually assaulted her. He left on foot, police said.
Smith said at an afternoon news conference that police had yet to speak to any witnesses and that he was unsure whether there was surveillance footage.
"It is Halloween and there are quite a few people on campus in costumes," Smith said, "and that could bring up a lot of issues."
On Monday afternoon, police were investigating a vehicle at the far northwestern corner of the sprawling lot, which sits on a hilltop above North Campus Drive and is bordered by trees.
Following the woman's report, campus officials notified faculty and students of the incident and the assailant's description via text messaging, Facebook and Twitter.
Landen Watts, a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering, said he hadn't seen anybody wearing a mask on campus Monday, though some were in costume.
"I thought it was pretty crazy that it happened in the middle of the day," he said.
Computer science major Janaan Lake said she parked in the lot an hour before the reported assault and never thought of it as a potentially dangerous place.
"It's kind of freaky," she said.
Anyone with information about the incident is urged to call campus police at 801-585-2677.
Twitter: @matthew_piper