Jessie Higgins

Evansville Courier & Press

With the help of a police dog, police apprehended a man they suspect raped a woman in an Evansville park early Friday.

Emanuel Vasquez was arrested on charges of felony rape, residential entry and resisting law enforcement after he fled – naked – from a police officer who arrived to help the woman.

The incident occurred in Lorraine Park.

The woman told police that she was walking alone to a friend’s house on the Southeast Side of Evansville around 2 a.m. Friday.

During the walk, a man approached her. The man “seemed friendly,” the woman told police, “and she believed that she would be safer walking with him than walking alone,” according to the probable cause affidavit.

The pair stopped to sit on a bench at Lorraine Park, and the man gave her a bottle of beer. He then “began caressing her body” and stripped naked, according to the affidavit.

The woman told police she tried to run, but the man tripped her. He climbed on top of her, pulled off her jeans and underwear, and raped her.

The woman fought to get free, and when she did she ran to a nearby house. The neighbor who answered the door called the police.

When the police officer arrived the man was still standing nearby, naked, according to the affidavit.

He ran from the officer. A police dog found Vasquez hiding on the porch of a house on the same block.

Vasquez did not comply with the officers’ orders to surrender, and was bitten by the dog during the arrest.

It was later discovered that Vasquez spoke little to no English.

The woman later identified a photo of Vasquez as the man who raped her, according to the affidavit.