Police said Thursday that an armed intruder who raped a woman earlier this week in central Lawrence may be the same person who committed two similar unsolved rapes in 2004.

“These attacks are terrible. They last for a while,” Lawrence Police spokesman Sgt. Dan Ward said. “These cases have been and will continue to be a priority for the police department. : We’ve spent probably thousands of hours investigating these cases, and we will not give up.”

The most recent rape happened just before 3 a.m. Monday after the attacker entered a 21-year-old woman’s home in central Lawrence. Police aren’t releasing many details, such as how he entered the home, but said he was armed with an unspecified weapon.

Previous incidents happened Dec. 29, 2004, when two women ages 19 and 20 were assaulted in an apartment in north-central Lawrence, and July 14, 2004, when a Kansas University student was raped in her home in southwest Lawrence.

In all three cases, the women were assaulted after the man entered the residence early in the morning – roughly between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.

“The victims are at home asleep,” Ward said.

The suspect in all cases is described as a white male in his 20s, about 6 feet tall with a slim build. In the first two cases, police said, the man had a gun.

Police have not released addresses or block numbers for any of the assaults, saying that to do so might identify the victims. But several residents of Highpointe Apartments, 2001 W. Sixth St., told the Journal-World last year they’d been informed that the December 2004 incident happened there.

KU senior Jessica Spinks said Thursday that she wasn’t aware of the previous assaults.

“I feel like I should probably know about it, which is the scary part,” she said.

She said she normally kept her doors and windows locked, “but now I guess I’ll keep them locked even tighter.”

Ward said people should be alert for suspicious activity and take safety precautions such as using window and door locks and not opening the door to anyone they haven’t identified. In particular, Ward mentioned locks that are secured from the inside, such as window pins and door chains, as a useful precaution.

Police are urging anyone with information about the crimes to call the department’s detective division at 830-7430 or the anonymous Crime Stoppers hot line at 843-TIPS. Police also want to hear from anyone who has been a victim of a similar crime.