A 20-year-old member of a Canosia Township group home is being held in the St. Louis County Jail after reportedly attacking a female staff member with a frying pan and forcing her into his bedroom at gunpoint in an attempted sexual assault Monday evening.
The St. Louis County Sheriff's Office said that the suspect was one of two clients left with a female adult staff member at the Stepping Stones for Living group home at 5922 Helm Road when another staff member took some other clients to a group function away from the residence.
The man is accused of striking the 21-year-old woman several times in the head and face with a metal frying pan. After he forced her into the bedroom, he's accused of placing a sock in her mouth to muffle her cries for help. He pulled off her pants.
Believing she was going to be sexually assaulted, the staff member fought with the man and managed to escape her restraints. She was able to run out of the house to a neighbor's residence to call police. She was treated and released from the hospital.
The accused attacker was found about two hours later two miles from the scene. He was arrested on preliminary charges of second-degree assault, attempted third-degree criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping and false imprisonment.
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Sheriff's investigators later determined that the gun used in the attack was a replica handgun.
The News Tribune generally doesn't identify suspects until they have been formally charged. Reports of the incident will be reviewed by the St. Louis County Attorney's Office for a charging decision.
