Crime-watch volunteer suspected in Texas was charged in 1990s case that had to be dropped

DALLAS – A crime-watch volunteer suspected of raping four women in Dallas this summer was also implicated in a sexual assault two decades ago.

But that case was dropped when his accuser died after being struck by lightning just before trial.

Thirty-eight-year-old Van Draylan Dixson was arrested Tuesday in Baton Rouge, La.

Police say DNA evidence so far has linked him to four rapes in Dallas' Fair Park neighborhood, where as many as nine women were attacked by the same man this summer.

Police say the assailant in each case was armed with a handgun.

A former prosecutor says that in the early 1990s, Dixson was accused of raping a woman at gunpoint.

Colleen Skinner, who is now a private attorney, says the woman's death made prosecution impossible.