5-21-2009 Florida:A man convicted of raping a slew of women and girls in North Miami-Dade apparently hanged himself in his jail cell early Wednesday.
Sedrick Williams, the convicted rapist who police say terrorized North Miami-Dade for more than a year, committed suicide in jail Wednesday, authorities said.
He apparently hanged himself.
His body was discovered about 4:45 a.m., said Janelle Hall, a jail spokeswoman.
Miami-Dade detectives are investigating the suicide, which is standard in all jail deaths.
The police department did not divulge how Williams hanged himself.
Williams, dubbed the North Dade Rapist, had already been sentenced to six life terms in connection with a series of attacks in 2002 and 2003.
The 34-year-old was awaiting trial on four cases involving a slew of sexual battery and armed burglary charges, Miami-Dade court records show.
For almost a year, starting on Christmas Day 2002, the North Dade Rapist terrorized northern Miami-Dade County, sneaking into his victims' homes through open windows or doors, and covering his face with a mask or a T-shirt. He used a gun, or sometimes a knife, to frighten his victims into silence during the middle-of-the-night attacks.
The youngest victim, a 7-year-old girl, was raped in front of her 8-year-old sister. DNA linked him to the crimes, Miami-Dade prosecutors said.
Williams was being held in a one-person safety cell at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
TGK corrections officers are supposed to check on inmates every 30 minutes, spokeswoman Hall said.
Williams is not the first high-profile inmate to hang himself in recent years while in custody of Miami-Dade corrections.
In May 2007, inmate Walter Choute -- accused of fatally shooting a Burger King manager during a robbery in North Miami -- committed suicide by slipping a bedsheet noose through the mesh of a vent over his toilet at the Metro West Detention Center. ..Source.. by DAVID OVALLE
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