critical condition and died July 16, Backus said, adding that the medical examiner has not issued a finding in the death.

A third case, on July 13, involved 57-year-old Robert Smith, who was found unresponsive and bleeding from his head, according to police. He was hospitalized and died July 17. The medical examiner's office found the cause of death was homicide on Sept. 17, Backus said.

On Aug. 20, 2026, 22-year-old Daniel Lusk was found stabbed to death. Police have arrested a suspect in that case, Edward Joseph Smith, who has been charged with open murder.

Smith was arraigned on Sept. 3 on an open murder charge, according to a court docket. ABC News has reached out to an attorney for Smith listed on the docket.

Finally, in a fifth incident on Aug. 30, police found 57-year-old Louis Woodruff with apparent facial injuries under the bridge. He was hospitalized and later died Sept. 1. The incident has been classified as a homicide, Backus said.

 I've mentioned that we have a suspect in custody for one of these incidents. And so, the question that's been posed to us is, is this a suspect for all the incidents?  said Backus.

 I want to be very clear that that is a challenging question to answer, but one I have to be very cautious on,  he said.

Backus continued,  Using a suspect, and then with that name using that to develop or find evidence that meets your theory, that leads you down a road of inappropriate charges, misidentification, some very big problems. So in law enforcement, our responsibility and our ethics demand that we approach this in the right manner. 

Backus said that, along with other police responses to the crime pattern, a tip line had been set up to handle River Trail assaults specifically.

Backus also touched on what he sees as the importance of surveillance footage, saying  We don't have a lot of surveillance footage, and that's a hot topic right now. And I do believe more surveillance would help us. More cameras would help us in this scenario.