DURHAM, N.H. (AP) – Becky Fisher, a 21-year-old senior at the University of New Hampshire, says she and her three female roommates have been sleeping in the same room some nights this summer because of an unusual early morning burglar who steals nothing, but sometimes cuts the clothes off young women while they sleep.

“We keep hearing about it and we know the girls it happened to and their friends,” said Fisher, who is from Concord. “It kind of has us freaked out.”

Fisher believes the burglar broke into her Durham apartment one night recently. While she and her roommates slept, someone apparently removed an air conditioner from the window, unlocked a door and entered, but left without taking anything or cutting any clothes.

Police said they don’t believe the incident at Fisher’s apartment was related to other reported intrusions.

Seven women, all UNH students or recent graduates, reported early morning intrusions since June, the latest reported Wednesday by two women who live off-campus.

Some of the women said an intruder tried to remove their clothes as they slept and at least one victim said she believes an intruder used scissors to cut her top off while she slept.

All the burglaries happened between 2 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. at off-campus apartments that were left unlocked. The burglar has been described as a thin man 25 or younger, with black hair, said Rene Kelley, Durham’s deputy police chief who is heading the investigation.

Police have not released a composite picture of a suspect.

Kelley said police are investigating whether some of the women may have been followed home from bars.

Police are working with state and federal agencies and met with UNH sociology professors Murray Straus and David Finkelhor to discuss the crimes.

Straus said he and Finkelhor talked with investigators about the motivation and patterns of people who commit such crimes.

Straus said it is possible – but he believes unlikely – that the crimes will escalate.

“It could easily be rape; he’s there with a weapon in his hands,” he said. “But that isn’t the way he gets his kicks. That’s a possibility, but more likely this is his form of sexual satisfaction and this, and maybe related things also, are all that he will do.”

University officials and police have urged students to lock their doors and be vigilant. When classes resume Sept. 2, dorms will be locked 24 hours a day, so that only students with proper identification will be allowed in. The new policy was enacted before the burglaries began, Scott Chesney, the university’s director of residential life, told The Union Leader.

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