CONSTRUCTION WORKER ARRESTED IN RAPE, BREAK-INS.

Byline: Laurence Darmiento Daily News Staff Writer

A construction worker from Canyon Country was in custody Tuesday on suspicion of raping a woman and burglarizing the apartments of two other women - all residents of the same Sierra Highway complex, officials said.

Russell Pierce, 38, an ex-convict who had served time for burglary, surrendered Monday night at the Santa Clarita Valley sheriff's station after learning that he was wanted for questioning, said sheriff's Sgt. Howard Fairchild.

"He went to his minister, and his minister convinced him to turn himself in," Fairchild said. "He copped out to everything."

Pierce, who was being held at the station's jail, may be charged today in Newhall Municipal Court, said Deputy District Dan Damon, chief of the district attorney's Newhall office.

Pierce is a suspect in a rape of a woman Friday night, as well as burglaries in September and January, all at an apartment complex deputies refused to identify to protect the women's identities.

The latest victim, who lives by herself, was raped after the man apparently broke into her apartment, he said.

"She woke up in the middle of the night, and the guy was on her," Fairchild said. "It was pitch black in her apartment."

The rape caught the attention of detectives who had been investigating two odd burglaries of other apartments in that same complex, Fairchild said.

On Sept. 14, a single woman reported that a burglar apparently had entered her apartment as she slept. She noticed footprints near a window and items moved around, but nothing was missing, Fairchild said.

Concerned for her safety, the woman temporarily moved out of her apartment. When she returned a week or so later, she found a note stuck in her door written on a sheet torn out of a pornographic magazine, Fairchild said.

The note informed the woman that the burglar wanted to meet her, but if she did not agree to do so he would leave her alone, Fairchild said.

The woman never met the man and was not bothered again. However, on Jan. 17 a different woman at the complex reported that a man entered her apartment while she was showering one morning shortly after her husband left, Fairchild said.

"We think he came in through the garage door. She hears someone and looks and someone is watching her shower," he said. "The man ran off but took some of her credit cards."

The use of the credit cards is what led detectives to Pierce. The cards were used to make purchases over the telephone, Fairchild said.

Detectives had been seeking telephone records to trace who placed the sale. Those records were obtained Monday and showed that one of the calls was placed from a San Fernando Valley construction site and another from Pierce's own apartment near the apartment complex where the victims lived, Fairchild said.

Apparently, Pierce learned he was being sought from people at work, contacted his minister and turned himself in, Fairchild said.