A married father-of-two prison guard was arrested on Monday for raping or attempting to rape three women in central Pennsylvania in the past five years.
Officials say they connected Kurtz to two of the crimes with DNA obtained from his discarded cigarettes.
Kurtz, a guard at the state prison in Coal Township, was under surveillance on Friday and Saturday when cops noticed him throwing cigarette butts out of his car window.
The DNA on the butts matched that perpetrator’s in two of the assaults.
John E. Kurtz, 43, was arrested on Monday in Shamokin, Pennsylvania and charged for raping or attempting to rape three women in the area since 2012
Investigators used the DNA from Kurtz’s discarded cigarette butts to connect him to the crimes
After his arrest, Krutz allegedly admitted to raping two of the victims.
‘His confessions showed that the knowledge he had of these incidents is that which only the victims and the individuals who committed these offenses would know,’ the affidavit reads.
Police say they believe there may be more victims.
Kurtz was arraigned Monday night on 24 counts including rape, kidnap, aggravated and simple assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, stalking, unlawful restraining and burglary.
His family was blown away by the allegations. Kurtz’s younger brother Jason was at his home in Shamokin on Monday night when reporters came knocking.
‘Just can’t understand where it came from, how this is even possible, his behavior,’ Jason Kurtz told WNEP. ‘We’re all trying to keep everything together. He has two children, a wife, house.’
The first incident dates back to November 9, 2012, when a woman in Coal Township heard a noise downstairs and went down to find a man wearing a Halloween mask.
Kurtz is a married father-of-three who works at the state prison in Coal Township, Pennsylvania (pictured above)
She told police that she tried to push him out but he forced her down, zip-tied her hands behind her back, put a ball gag in her mouth, covered her eyes with a blindfold, put a pillowcase over her head and then wrapped her in a sheet.
He then carried her down to the cellar where she proceeded to plead with him to stop when she managed to get the ball gag out of her mouth.
Kurtz then acted nervously, taking the woman upstairs, then back down to the cellar and out the basement door where he sat her down on some rocks.
Eventually he brought her back into the cellar where he cut the zip ties and left without assaulting her.
The next incident happened in July 2016, and involved the wife of one of of his co-workers.
Investigators said he broke in when he knew her husband would be at work.
At his arraignment, prosecutors asked the judge to set Kurtz’s (right) bail high because they believe he is a flight risk due to his connection in the Philippines, where his wife, left, is from
The woman says a man in a tan-colored ski mask broke into her home and then secured her hands with zipties, gagged her and blindfolded her.
She says he then tried to carry her out to a vehicle, but she was able to spit out the gag and start yelling for help.
He reacted by taking her back inside and then choking her until she was unconscious.
When she came to, she was in a camper, where she says the masked man raped her.
During the rape, he told her not to look at him or ‘it would be her life’.
At the end of the assault, he used latex gloves to wipe her down with antiseptic bags, and then put a bag over her head to take her to another vehicle, which he used to drive her to a cornfield about a mile from her house. He released her in that field, after removing her blindfold and cutting her zip ties.
The most recent assault happened in April, when a woman woke up around 2:30am to find a man straddling her.
She says he ziptied her hands behind her, placed a cloth over her eyes, gagged her, wrapped her in a sheet and then carried her to a vehicle.
The man then drove her to a two-story home where he raped her, telling her all the while that if she continued to resist him he would ‘slit her throat’. He also said that ‘it’s your saving grace that you have that blindfold’.
At the end of the assault, he took her back to her home, placed her in a bathtub, removed the gag and zipties and ordered her to stay there.
The latter two victims gave investigators a crucial piece of information when they revealed that he was a smoker.
The DNA obtained from Kurtz’s discarded cigarette butts this weekend matched the semen preserved in the rape kit for the July 2016 rape, and potentially match DNA from the November 2012 incident.
Kurtz’s younger brother Jason was at his home on Monday and said he ‘just can’t understand where it came from’
Following his arrest, Kurtz was suspended from the state prison in Coal Township where he worked.
‘SCI Coal Township and the Department of Corrections have cooperated with the Pennsylvania State Police in their investigation,’ Trisha Kelley, a corrections superintendent assistant at SCI-Coal Township, said.
Kurtz had been a correction officer since 2010 and was assigned to work at the Coal Township State Prison in March 2015.
At his arraignment on Monday, prosecutors asked the judge to set bail high because Kurtz could be a flight risk due to his connections in the Philippines, where his wife is from originally.
The judge set bail at $1.5million, and ordered Kurtz to turn in his passport if he posts it.
A preliminary hearing has been set for December 27.
Anyone with information on the assaults is being asked to contact local police at 570-524-2662.