A rape that occurred near Maryland Heights on Sept. 19 is believed to be connected to a serial rapist's attempt to attack Asian women.

St. Louis County police believe a serial rapist is targeting Asian women in northwestern St. Louis County and possibly elsewhere throughout the country, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

One of those rapes happened in Maryland Heights when an 18-year-old girl was walking home from a friend's house near the intersection of Bennington Road and Fee Fee Road. 

During that rape, a Hispanic man described as approximately 5-feet-6 inches and weighing about 180 pounds approached, grabbed and sexually assaulted the teen girl.

Police were able to forensically link the Maryland Heights rape and another rape that happened several months prior to the same man, described as a Hispanic man about 45-years-of-age, the Post-Dispatch reports.

From the Post-Dispatch:

"Generally speaking, serial rapists do their homework on their victims before they attack," Fitch said. "We have every reason to believe this guy isn't just driving up the road and attacking the first woman he sees."

Fitch also said similar reports going back several years have surfaced in San Diego, Calif., and in Maryland that involve a possibly Hispanic man targeting Asian women.

"We're trying to determine is this a transient person, who is moving from city to city for a job and see if there are links in those other cases," he said. "That makes it even more difficult to catch someone when they're mobile like that. But it could turn out that he was born and raised here as well."