STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — State College police said 36-year-old Jeffrey Fields of Port Matilda raped four women between 2010 and 2017.
Court paperwork shows, in one instance, a victim was walking home along South Burrowes Street and Fields offered her a ride.
She refused and fields dragged her into overgrown bushes and raped her.
"For someone to be that open about doing it is kind of hard to think about and again for such a long time, it's kind of like scary," said Shianne Mack, Penn State 2020 graduate.
Officers say all of the rapes happened outside within a couple of blocks from one another near fraternity row.
All of the victims were between 19 and 20.
Stephanie Lin is a Penn State graduate student, living in the neighborhood where the rapes occurred.
It makes me re-evaluate walking here at night a little bit," Lin said.
"State College is a town where it's peaceful, people are nice here," said Yiren Dong, Penn State student. "I didn't expect there would be a guy like that to have such terrible actions.
During the investigation, police were able to use Genetic Geneology Screening to identify Jeffrey Fields as the suspect.
Police say the suspect's DNA was discovered during each of the four investigations.
Ultimately, it was matched to existing genealogy records that narrowed the search to family members of Jeffrey Fields.
"I'm definitely happy that it got him off the streets but obviously, I really wish that there had been other protocol in place to be able to catch him before that," said Karish Mapattni, Penn State student.
Fields is locked up in Centre County Correctional Facility without bail.