Police have arrested a suspect in the attempted rape of a woman who fought off her attacker on part of a popular Charlotte greenway last year.
The woman was assaulted just before 11:15 a.m., Sept. 7, 2022, on a section of the McAlpine Creek Greenway network, between Independence Boulevard and Margaret Wallace Road, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
She was walking in the greenway when the man attacked her from behind, Capt. Jim Wright of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said at the time.
The woman called 911 on her cellphone, Wright said.
The 40-year-old woman was released from the hospital after being treated for bruises and scratches, according to a police report. Greenway maps label the location of the reported attack as the southern end of Campbell Creek Greenway.
In a news release Friday, police said University Division officers arrested 28-year-old Khalil Boler on Thursday on charges of attempted second-degree rape, second-degree kidnapping, attempted common law robbery, interfering with emergency communication, assault on a female and sexual battery.
Boler was in the Mecklenburg County jail Friday on a $116,500 bond, jail records showed.
Police said they identified Boler as a person of interest in the assault after his arrest in connection with two incidents at Target at 8120 University City Boulevard. He was charged with sexual battery in one incident and indecent exposure in the other case, police said.
Police officials say detectives used DNA analysis gathered from evidence after the greenway attack. The analysis included a familial DNA search with help from the North Carolina State Crime Lab, police said.
CMPD Independence Division officers and county Park and Recreation workers spent “a significant amount of time” patrolling the greenway over the past year, police said. Officers also extensively canvassed the greenway for witnesses and evidence that helped in the case, according to the news release.
Charlotte greenway crimes
More recent reported cases of sexual violence on Charlotte greenways remain under investigation.
In August, a 15-year-old reported to police she was jogging when she was approached by a man who was exposing himself. Police incident report information showed that happened on a stretch of Four Mile Creek Greenway, which connects to the Lower McAlpine Greenway in south Charlotte.
One month prior — and on another greenway trail two miles away — two women, both in their 60s, were walking on the greenway when a man exposed himself to them and sexually assaulted at least one of them, CMPD officials said at the time.
Both the July and August cases happened in the morning hours.
CMPD urged anyone with information in the greenway attack to call the Crime Stoppers anonymous tips line at 704-334-1600.