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Serial Rapist Arrested for Gunpoint Sexual Assaults in Margate, Tamarac

Russell McLean {BSO}

By Kevin Deutsch

A serial rapist who sexually assaulted three women at gunpoint in Margate and Tamarac and tried and failed to rape another has been identified by Margate Police using DNA technology and charged for his crimes, court records show.

Russell McLean, 65, of Jamaica, was extradited back to Broward County this week and charged with multiple counts of armed sexual assault, armed kidnapping, burglary, and other crimes stemming from the series of attacks that terrorized Margate and Tamarac residents in 1996 and 1997, according to an arrest affidavit.

McLean raped two of the women at gunpoint in the same Margate home on June 12, 1996, police said. About a month later, the armed McLean attacked a woman in the same neighborhood, binding her hands in her bedroom and threatening to kill her if she did not submit, records show.

She fought McLean off, and he fled her home, records show.

He raped the fourth victim in Tamarac on April 26, 1997, leaving behind DNA evidence that police later matched to DNA collected from the Margate rape victims’ bodies, according to Margate Police.

Records filed by police show McLean carefully stalked his victims and broke into their homes when they were most vulnerable.

In the Tamarac case, for example, McLean broke into a 29-year-old victim’s townhouse while her kids were away and her husband was out drinking, records show. There, he laid her on her coffee table and raped her while apparently videotaping the attack, investigators wrote.

McLean struck again on January 27, 1997, breaking into a Coral Springs home, police said. Records show that this time, the woman he was apparently targeting called the police in time, and McLean was arrested for the break-in.

Police found a toy gun, knife, gloves, and a flashlight in his possession. But his DNA had not yet been matched to the rape victims, and he was not then suspected of any sexual assaults.

Records show that he soon bonded out of jail and, despite surrendering his passport, fled to Jamaica. He had never returned to the U.S. until this month when he was extradited, police said.

Before fleeing Margate, McLean lived at 5105 SW 8th Ct. from 1991 through 1997. When a new owner moved into the home in 2001, he found several guns and jewelry in the attic, which police traced back to the crime scenes in two of McLean’s sexual battery cases, records show.

All of McLean’s Margate sexual assault victims lived in his neighborhood, police said.

While secretly leading the life of a serial rapist, McLean, on the surface, appeared to lead an otherwise respectable, professional life, records show.

From 1991 through 1997, McLean was employed by Nova Southeastern University as a community coordinator for their satellite office in Lauderdale Lakes, police said. The office was a counseling center and part of the university’s psychology department.

At the center, patients would be counseled for depression and traumatic events.

“McLean’s place of employment is relevant because after the two Margate victims were sexually battered, McLean told them, ‘I know this is traumatizing and going to affect you long term. Do you guys want me to leave you money for counseling?” police wrote in the arrest affidavit.

Records show that McLean began a new life in Jamaica after he escaped from Margate, becoming a lecturer and faculty member at Northern Caribbean University.

But police never ceased their search for the Margate and Tamarac rapist.

They eventually collected DNA from McLean’s sister in the U.S. and performed a familial comparison with the DNA left behind at each of the rape scenes, records show.

The tests revealed McLean as the culprit in the unsolved attacks, police said.

He was being held without bond Saturday at the Broward Main Jail.

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Author Profile

Kevin Deutsch

Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning journalist and author of two nonfiction books. He covers general assignment news and Jewish community issues for Talk Media. He has also worked as a staff writer at The Miami Times, the Rio Grande SUN, the New York Daily News, Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Palm Beach Post, The Riverdale Press, and Bronx Justice News.