The accused serial sex offender charged with attacking three women in Manhattan before being busted was hiding in plain sight during the police manhunt for him, locals told The Post on Monday.
Carl Phanor, 29, was “a fixture in [the] neighborhood” on Manhattan’s West Side for months, even after cops learned he allegedly sexually molested a jogger near Hudson River Park in March and were looking for him, an area couple told The Post.
Phanor went on to assault one other early-morning runner on the East Side in October after which rape a tourist jogger back on the West Side earlier this month before being caught, in keeping with police.
“The road that he vanished is bull—t,” said an area woman who asked to be identified as Elaine — responding to a top cop’s comments last week saying the suspect dodged detectives by possibly sleeping at construction sites and even going out of state.
“If [police] actually put posters up, I might have seen them on daily basis because I run on the river,” she insisted. “I might see this guy somewhat repeatedly sitting on the benches by the river. In October, he was hanging out on Barrow and Washington [streets] and would use it as a rest room.”
Elaine and her husband said cops never interviewed them, nor did they see officers canvassing their neighborhood before Phanor allegedly struck two more times after the March attack.
Elaine and her husband David said they continuously saw Phanor throughout the neighborhood during his time on the lam, including on park benches and under scaffolding, where he occasionally went to sleep.
“I used to be there with my dog on the river between Barrow and Christopher,” Elaine said of 1 sighting in late May. “I noticed he had an erraticness to him and distinctively remembered he was wearing a blue zip sweatshirt. He was a small guy. I because very aware of him.”
She said she began avoiding jogging after dark.
“We at all times avoided him,” David said. “It was shocking to see his face when he was caught, nevertheless it wasn’t surprising.
“The incontrovertible fact that he committed two crimes around here says that he’s around,” he said. “It’s not like someone got robbed or had their wallet stolen — they were raped.”
On Oct. 6, Phanor sexually assaulted and robbed one other woman, then raped a tourist from Illinois on Nov. 3 — hours before he was finally busted, cops said.
Cops arrested him as he was about to board a bus on the Port Authority terminal.
Police said they imagine Phanor fled town after the primary attack.
But Elaine and David suggested that the suspect was hanging around their neighborhood enough afterward that he might have been caught.
“He was recognizable enough that if police put up fliers or posters in our lobby, I feel it will have been pretty easy to discover him,” David said. “I don’t think the police did enough.”
The NYPD said cops did blanket the realm of their seek for Phanor, including by distributing his photo — and fliers — to station houses for dissemination locally and by checking local homeless shelters.
“The NYPD worked night and day to locate and arrest this suspect, placing physical fliers in lots of, many locations related to these crimes,” the department said in an announcement to The Post on Monday.
“The department also issued digital CrimeStoppers rewards and appealed to the general public and the media for assistance.
“Placing fliers was one a part of a holistic strategy the NYPD pursued on this case, grateful for the assistance of Recent Yorkers who were attempting to discover a dangerous criminal with certainty despite the challenges of working from surveillance photos and attempting to match that to random sightings on the street — often at night or inclement weather,” it said.
“Even the seasoned NYPD detectives who captured Mr. Phanor immediately after his last alleged attack preferred waiting for a positive fingerprint match before definitively identifying him because he had modified his appearance and claimed to be another person.”
The accused serial sex offender charged with attacking three women in Manhattan before being busted was hiding in plain sight during the police manhunt for him, locals told The Post on Monday.
Carl Phanor, 29, was “a fixture in [the] neighborhood” on Manhattan’s West Side for months, even after cops learned he allegedly sexually molested a jogger near Hudson River Park in March and were looking for him, an area couple told The Post.
Phanor went on to assault one other early-morning runner on the East Side in October after which rape a tourist jogger back on the West Side earlier this month before being caught, in keeping with police.
“The road that he vanished is bull—t,” said an area woman who asked to be identified as Elaine — responding to a top cop’s comments last week saying the suspect dodged detectives by possibly sleeping at construction sites and even going out of state.
“If [police] actually put posters up, I might have seen them on daily basis because I run on the river,” she insisted. “I might see this guy somewhat repeatedly sitting on the benches by the river. In October, he was hanging out on Barrow and Washington [streets] and would use it as a rest room.”
Elaine and her husband said cops never interviewed them, nor did they see officers canvassing their neighborhood before Phanor allegedly struck two more times after the March attack.
Elaine and her husband David said they continuously saw Phanor throughout the neighborhood during his time on the lam, including on park benches and under scaffolding, where he occasionally went to sleep.
“I used to be there with my dog on the river between Barrow and Christopher,” Elaine said of 1 sighting in late May. “I noticed he had an erraticness to him and distinctively remembered he was wearing a blue zip sweatshirt. He was a small guy. I because very aware of him.”
She said she began avoiding jogging after dark.
“We at all times avoided him,” David said. “It was shocking to see his face when he was caught, nevertheless it wasn’t surprising.
“The incontrovertible fact that he committed two crimes around here says that he’s around,” he said. “It’s not like someone got robbed or had their wallet stolen — they were raped.”
On Oct. 6, Phanor sexually assaulted and robbed one other woman, then raped a tourist from Illinois on Nov. 3 — hours before he was finally busted, cops said.
Cops arrested him as he was about to board a bus on the Port Authority terminal.
Police said they imagine Phanor fled town after the primary attack.
But Elaine and David suggested that the suspect was hanging around their neighborhood enough afterward that he might have been caught.
“He was recognizable enough that if police put up fliers or posters in our lobby, I feel it will have been pretty easy to discover him,” David said. “I don’t think the police did enough.”
The NYPD said cops did blanket the realm of their seek for Phanor, including by distributing his photo — and fliers — to station houses for dissemination locally and by checking local homeless shelters.
“The NYPD worked night and day to locate and arrest this suspect, placing physical fliers in lots of, many locations related to these crimes,” the department said in an announcement to The Post on Monday.
“The department also issued digital CrimeStoppers rewards and appealed to the general public and the media for assistance.
“Placing fliers was one a part of a holistic strategy the NYPD pursued on this case, grateful for the assistance of Recent Yorkers who were attempting to discover a dangerous criminal with certainty despite the challenges of working from surveillance photos and attempting to match that to random sightings on the street — often at night or inclement weather,” it said.
“Even the seasoned NYPD detectives who captured Mr. Phanor immediately after his last alleged attack preferred waiting for a positive fingerprint match before definitively identifying him because he had modified his appearance and claimed to be another person.”
