Arrest Made In Highland Park Sex Assault

HIGHLAND PARK, NJ — In breaking news, the Middlesex County prosecutor's office announced Monday it has made an arrest in the brutal rape and beating of a Highland Park woman last weekend, who had her child with her at the time.

A 23-year-old Franklin Township man has been charged with beating and sexually assaulting a Highland Park woman at gunpoint. Brandon Cox, 23, of the Somerset section of Franklin Township, has been charged with 16 counts — including attempted murder — in the attack of the woman on Sunday, February 19 on Harper Avenue in Highland Park, Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew C. Carey and Chief Stephen Rizco of the Highland Park Police Department said.

It was a crime that stunned and terrified the quiet, intellectual town of Highland Park. Police said the man grabbed the woman as she was walking, showed her a gun and dragged her into the basement of a nearby apartment building, where he punched her repeatedly and then raped her. The woman was walking her child in a stroller at the time of the attack. The child, reportedly a baby, was unharmed, and the woman escaped, running to a neighbor's home on Harper Avenue and pounding on the door. Her face was covered in blood.

The woman was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick. The attack happened in daylight, just after 5 p.m. on an unseasonably warm Sunday before the President's Day holiday.

After the assault, Highland Park residents told Patch they were terrified to walk around town after dark, and Mayor Gayle Brill Mittler said the entire community was "on edge." Several residents also remarked how seriously Middlesex County and Highland Park police took the case, knocking on local stores starting at 6 a.m. each day, asking to review their security footage and show a grainy photo of the suspect. That photo may have led to Cox's arrest: Police were showing a blurry, grainy image of a suspect taken from someone's security camera, local shopkeepers told Patch.

Cox has been charged with counts of kidnapping, attempted murder, aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual contact, armed robbery, burglary, unlawful possession of a weapon, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, endangering the welfare of a child and endangering an injured victim.

He was arrested earlier last week on an unrelated charge. He subsequently was charged with attacking the woman.

Cox was charged during an intensive investigation by Detective Sean McGraw of the Highland Park Police Department and Detective Allie Bitterman of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office.

The investigation is active and is continuing. Anyone with information is asked to call McGraw at (723) 572-3800, or Bitterman at (732) 745-4401. Photo of Brandon Cox provided by the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office.

Ongoing Patch coverage:
Highland Park Sex Assault Sunday; Attacker At Large
Highland Park On Edge After Sex Assault in Town