A rapist who terrorized women aged 23 to 69 from SoHo to Washington Heights in a two-month spree during 2009 was sentenced to 428 years in prison yesterday.
Vincent Heyward, 23, of Manhattan, displayed "a monstrous pattern of violence against New York women," said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.
Vance credited DNA evidence with helping to solve the crime. Heyward was nabbed for the uptown attacks after an alert cop noticed he resembled the sketch and video of the suspect being sought and Heyward agreed to provide a DNA sample. A 34-year-old woman he attacked on Broome Street on Aug. 23, 2009, distracted Heyward by telling him she was HIV positive before punching him in the nose. The blood he left on her building's wall matched DNA evidence in the four sexual assaults in Hamilton Heights, Sugar Hill and Washington Heights.
A jury found Heyward guilty of 35 felonies - including 18 counts of predatory sexual assault and two counts each of first- and second-degree robbery and first-degree burglary - against five different women on Nov. 18.
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