Four days after a brutal assault against a UW-Madison student on Langdon Street shocked and frightened the campus community, Madison Police Department Chief Mike Koval announced his department had taken the suspect into custody.
Koval said the suspect, 22-year-old Madison resident Jerome Winslow, had been engaging in “serial predation” of women around the Langdon Street area Saturday night before the assault early the next morning.
“There are at least some indications of a precursor to this,” Koval said in a press conference Thursday. “We have video to suggest that he was looking at another young co-ed and would have pursued her but for the fact that she got home.”
Police do not believe Winslow knew the 19-year-old female student whom he assaulted, but chose her at random.
“There was no interaction between the victim and our suspect,” MPD Public Information Officer Joel DeSpain said. “She was just on her way home.”
Koval noted Winslow had an extensive criminal record with court documents showing two 2017 felony convictions for battery and party to an armed robbery, as well as a conviction for domestic abuse in 2015. A critic of the criminal justice system, Koval expressed disappointment in the fact Winslow was allowed to be back on the streets after so many chances.
“I like looking at every case as … an opportunity for restorative justice. This ain’t that case, none of those apply,” he said. “If those who are complementary pieces of the criminal justice system want to release this person back into your community, don't come to me.”
Koval said this assault stood out to him and others in the department as particularly brutal — the victim was rendered unrecognizable due to swelling and required multiple surgeries to correct several fractures in her face. He said he had been in contact with her family, who requested privacy but reported she was responsive and recovering.
He noted the brutality was shocking even to veteran officers experienced with violent crime scenes.
“This wasn’t your bar fight off State Street on Saturday night,” he said. “This was something horrendously different.”
Koval praised the city’s police department for their work in solving the case, which he said became their top priority as soon as it was reported. He said their work was made much easier by the “hours and hours of footage” captured by security cameras, which he said are crucial to solving crimes downtown.
“We need cameras to do our job in 2019,” Koval said, dismissing concerns over privacy. “Thank God Big Brother is watching.”
