PANAMA CITY BEACH — Sheriff’s deputies and Panama City Beach Police are searching for suspects in two home-invasion cases that might not be related after all, one law enforcement official said.
Initially, officers believed the cases may have involved the same suspect.
On Dec. 16, a white man dressed all in black clothes entered a woman’s home in the Edgewater Crossing Apartments and attacked her, according to a Panama City Beach Police press release. The woman was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Police are investigating and won’t release additional information.
Deputies with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office said later in the week they believed it was related to another home invasion the BCSO has classified as a sexual battery. In that case, deputies responded to a home on North Lagoon Drive in the unincorporated area of Panama City Beach.
They found the home in disarray, with what deputies believed was bleach poured all over a staircase and a bed, according to a BCSO report. A blanket hanging out of the window was tied to one of the bedposts. Deputies searched the area last week using the BCSO’s K9 and air units, but the suspect got away and remained at large early this week.
The victim told deputies she believed she had been drugged with an unknown substance, and the only description she could provide was of a white man who wore a mask during the attack. She also was hospitalized.
Deputies believe he may have been driving a white pickup truck with a camper cover and decals, but they had no other investigative leads, Sgt. Marc Tochterman said Monday.
Panama City Beach Police Chief Drew Whitman said earlier this week police believe the two crimes are random in that there doesn’t seem to be a connection between the two victims; they don’t know each other and neither knew the man who attacked them.
“Right now we believe they’re random,” Whitman said.
Tochterman didn’t say why investigators initially believed the cases might have been related, but that theory was unraveling.
“It’s looking more and more like it’s not related,” Tochterman said.
Whitman could not be reached later in the week for clarification. When asked whether the city’s case was a sexual assault or a home invasion, a spokesperson for the PCBPD said Wednesday the department is investigating the case as a home invasion.