The Miami Herald

MIAMI – Reynaldo E. Rapalo says he spent his six days on the lam mostly hiding in a makeshift shelter hidden in the brush of Southwest Miami-Dade County – and he contemplated raping again, investigators said Wednesday.

Rapalo, affable to the point he even sang for detectives, made the revelations in a six-hour interview with investigators after he was recaptured Monday night.

He originally was arrested in 2003, charged with raping seven females, ages 11 to 79. Rapalo, 34, escaped from the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Dec. 20, using rope fashioned from bed sheets to scale down several stories of the jail.

He was caught late Monday after someone phoned in a tip that Rapalo was in a strip mall.

The Miami-Dade police investigators who spoke at a briefing Wednesday were detectives Pat Diaz, Ralph Duran, Ralph Fratianni, Alberto Morciego and Sgt. Robert Perez.

This is the account they say Rapalo gave of his time on the run:

After escaping, Rapalo ran south alongside the railroad tracks, ending up around Northwest Seventh Street and 70th Avenue.

At that point, Rapalo spotted three or four men walking on the tracks toward him.

“The entire time he was trotting down the rail tracks, he was looking up at the sky to see if helicopters were upon him,” said Perez.

Rapalo feared they were robbers or undercover detectives. Picking up a stick in one hand, a rock in the other, Rapalo confronted them.

The men were homeless; Rapalo explained he had just escaped from jail. They gave him water and even some money.

Later, he arrived at a gas station at 70th Avenue and Flagler Street. He bought a soda and made a phone call to someone.

That person met him at a predetermined location – detectives would not say who or where – and brought him food. The two stayed that night in the bushes nearby.

It is unclear whether that person, or anyone else who aided Rapalo, will face charges, but detectives say the investigation is ongoing.

After days in hiding, and under intense pressure, Rapalo emerged from hiding on Christmas Eve, casing a Christmas Eve party in a nearby residential neighborhood. As the party wound down, Rapalo spied two possible victims.

“He actually contemplated committing a sexual act on these two people,” Perez said.

But Rapalo did not, and returned to his hiding place.

Late Monday night, Rapalo was taken to an interview room at the FDLE headquarters in West Miami-Dade.

Detectives say he asked for a meal – rice, beans with steak and plantains – and was his usual charismatic self during the six-hour interview.

He even sang for them: mariachi songs he composed in jail.

Even in custody, the detectives said, Rapalo appeared cunning.

“It was like he was calculating how he could get out of this room if he had to,” said Fratianni. “His eyes were always shifting.”

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