A woman who was allegedly assaulted while walking her dog took a picture of the suspect with her phone and police later arrested a 21-year-old man.
The Shelton Police Department arrest is the result of an incident that allegedly occurred last month at the Riverwalk on Canal Street in Shelton. Police said the 47-year-old woman reported she walking was her dog at the Riverwalk when a man approached her and stated “he wanted to get to know her.”
Police said the woman reported she attempted to walk away but the man allegedly put “his arms around her preventing her from leaving.”
“The woman reported that while the man was restraining her, he grabbed her breasts,” police said.
Police said the woman reported that she was able to allegedly “fight her way free from the man and he grabbed her buttocks as she was fleeing.”
However, the woman “had the awareness to take a photograph of the man during the encounter,” and she gave the photograph to “the Shelton Police who disseminated it to the public,” police said.
Shelton police detectives later located Jgai Purcell of Shelton, who they said “matched the man in the photograph.”
“The woman was later shown a photographic array and she identified Purcell as the man” who allegedly “restrained and assaulted her at the Riverwalk,” police said.
Purcell is charged with fourth-degree sexual assault and second-degree unlawful restraint, police said. He was being held in lieu of $50,000 bail.
