A key break in the “Collegetown Creeper” case occured when a Collegetown resident saw Abraham Shorey enter her bedroom. She was later able to identify him from a photo array brought to her by Ithaca Police Department investigators. After receiving a call from the IPD about the intrusion, Shorey went to the police station and confessed to officials.

The Creeper’s activities and persistence escalated throughout his 13-month string of break-ins and assaults: what started as looking through open windows at sleeping residents moved to pounding on locked doors and sexual touching.

One such incident occurred when a female resident of Maplewood Apartments on Maple Avenue reported that at approximately 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning in October 2003, a white male entered her unlocked apartment, according to an e-mail sent to the Cornell community.

The victim reportedly woke up to the man touching her, and he ran out when she woke up.

Police were confident that they had arrested the correct person.

“Mr. Shorey has been a ‘person of interest’ to the IPD for some time. We are confident that he is the person that is publicly referred to as the ‘Collegetown Creeper,’” then IPD Police Chief Lauren Signer wrote in a statement.

“As far as how many incidents he was involved in, very likely all of them. But will we ever be able to prove that? Not necessarily,” Signer told The Sun. “But we have enough information to be comfortable saying that this is the Collegetown Creeper. Believe me, we would not say that if we didn’t think it was.”

Shorey maintained his innocence in an interview with The Sun after his arrest, though the IPD gave differing statements on what crimes he had admitted to.

Signer has maintained that Shorey confessed to being “responsible for many previous and similar crimes in the Collegetown area,” while IPD Chief Tom Graziani told the Ithaca Journal that “He’s only confessed to [an Oct. 24 Dryden Road trespassing.]” Graziani said he was still confident Shorey was the Creeper.

Shorey was indicted in the fall of 2004, sent to Tompkins County Jail, and fled Ithaca, forfeiting $5,000 bail.

After two years on the run, Shorey was arrested on May 5, 2006 in Normal Heights, San Diego. He pled guilty to residential burglary with intent to commit rape and assault with intent to commit rape.

Tompkins County District Attorney Gwen Wilkinson announced on May 9 that Abraham Shorey, the man thought to be the “Collegetown Creeper,” will not stand trial for burglary and sexual abuse charges in New York. Since being found and arrested in 2006, however, Shorey has been serving a six-year prison sentence in California for burglary and assault with intent to rape.

Wilkinson said she will not be pressing charges against Shorey for his Collegetown crimes because too much time has passed and there is no clear DNA or physical evidence linking him to the crimes.

“I’m not saying that Abraham Shorey is not the Collegetown Creeper. I’m saying the passage of time has damaged the case against him irreparably,” she told The Ithaca Journal.