Herbert Joyner, a 39-year-old Rocky Mount resident, was taken into custody about 6 p.m. Friday. Rocky Mount police and Nash County deputies worked together to bring Joyner in.
Authorities say the two female victims were randomly selected. But Joyner is the lone suspect in both cases.
The similarities of the crimes, as well as their proximity to each other, led police to believe the same person was responsible for both.
Each of the victims was alone in their car along the same section of Raleigh Road when they were abducted in the car, driven to the outskirts of town and raped.
"Usually, when someone commits crimes, they move around or go from one place to the other," said Capt. Larry Wells of the Rocky Mount Police Department. "These two happened within a few blocks of each other."
The first case occurred around sunrise Tuesday outside a restaurant on Raleigh Road, where the 47-year-old victim had just dropped a friend at work.
Friday morning's incident happened in a parking lot about a block away. The 18-year-old victim was waiting for a friend.
Both victims were forced to drive to the same area just outside of town, where they were raped on a path just off Highway 97.
Both women reportedly were able to get away because the suspect stopped at drug houses to buy cocaine on the way back to town after the rapes. That's how the women were able to drive away.
Nash County Sheriff Jimmy Grimes said his office received an anonymous tip that led authorities to Joyner, who was arrested without incident at a local residence.
Lt. Dennis Lyons of the Nash County Sheriff's Office said the search for the suspect was unsettling.
"You try to keep emotions out of it," Lyons said. "But anytime you get a crime of this nature, you're not satisfied until the bad guy is caught."
Said Grimes: "We feel great that he is off the street."
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