{"id":393836,"date":"2026-07-31T19:39:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T19:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/393836\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T19:39:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T19:39:09","slug":"houston-police-department-calls-for-victims-of-phillip-cerf-to-come-forward-after-recent-arrest-following-multiple-alleged-rapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/393836\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston Police Department calls for victims of Phillip Cerf to come forward after recent arrest following multiple alleged rapes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) &#8212; A 62-year-old man is now in custody after being linked to multiple rape cases since 1997, according to the Houston Police Department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The suspect was identified as Phillip Cerf.  Houston Mayor John Whitmire, HPD Chief J. Noe Diaz, and FBI officials are set to announce his official arrest after Cerf was charged with four counts of aggravated sexual assault last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Cerf&#8217;s alleged crimes include being accused of luring a woman into his car and raping her at gunpoint in 1997. Investigators are also accusing Cerf of sexual crimes in 2009, 2013, and a 2016 rape case where a woman was raped at gunpoint in the north Houston area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">RELATED: <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/abc13.com\/post\/serial-rape-suspect-arrested-29-years-first-crime-police-say\/19559821\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Serial rape suspect arrested 29 years after first crime, police say<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Officials said that it was possible Cerf drove trucks for nearly 16 years, with six years driving in Houston singularly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">According to court documents, investigators linked all four rapes together in July 2025 and identified Cerf as a suspect in 2026. Officials said the victims were all of different ages and races, and each woman was allegedly approached late at night.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">According to documents, undercover officers began surveilling him at his Atascocita apartment in April and were able to obtain his DNA for testing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">An officer reportedly saw him spit on the ground and gathered the evidence, and it matched DNA collected from all four victims, according to charging documents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Officials said detectives were able to connect the case through public genealogy information and building a family tree after identifying Cerf&#8217;s family member through the DNA collected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Investigators said Cerf may have committed additional assaults and are looking for any potential victims to come forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Cerf is currently being held on no bond, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 KTRK-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) &#8212; A 62-year-old man is now in custody after being linked to multiple rape cases&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[138557,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-393836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-138557","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}