Rape suspect in custody

A rape suspect was in custody Thursday night, following an earlier attack.

Kevin A. Thompson, 20, is accused of raping a woman in her Whitworth-area home early Thursday. Thompson was expected to be booked into Spokane County Jail on a charge of first-degree rape, said Spokane County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Dave Reagan.

The attack happened just after midnight, after a group of five women returned to the home on North Waikiki, according to a release from the Sheriff’s Office.

The rapist woke one of the women, who was sleeping in the living room, and asked for another by name. Thinking that the man was friends with the woman he named, she pointed to the bedroom of the eventual victim and fell back to sleep.

Although the 21-year-old victim didn’t know her attacker, “he knew her somehow, like the library, a grocery store or somewhere else,” Reagan said.

After the rape, the suspect raced out of the house, through a basement window. He dropped his hat and left behind his Adidas shoes, which were bloody from a cut he sustained during his escape.

On Thursday afternoon, authorities were told that the alleged rapist lived in the Nine Mile Falls area. Authorities found Thompson at a home there, and he was taken into custody without incident, Reagan said.

The woman was not a Whitworth University student, but university officials used it as a reminder to students to be careful by locking doors, walking with others and obtaining safe rides, said Whitworth communications director Greg Orwig. University dorms are accessible only by student identification cards, he said.

The attack was especially concerning to authorities because “home-invasion stranger-to-stranger rapes are extremely rare,” Reagan said. Detectives considered the attacker a danger to other women.