The RCMP is seeking one or possibly two males after calls on Thursday, Jan. 12 that might be related.
The first call came in at 10:24 p.m. from a residence in Nordic, related to an assault that took place near the pedestrian bridge.
According to police, a female was waiting at the bus stop when a male approached. They struck up a conversation and she asked how to get to Alta Vista. The male was showing her the way on the bridge, when he attempted to grab her. She pushed him away and started to scream. He tried to stop her from screaming, stole her cell phone to prevent her from calling the police and told her he'd kill her if she didn't stop screaming. She tried to run away, at which point the male tripped her and told her not to follow him. She ran away to a nearby residence and called the police.
The police, including a dog team were investigating the incident when they received another call, which sounded like it might be related.
The 10:42 p.m. call to police came from the Brio subdivision. A woman said she was on Panorama Drive when a male who was seeking directions approached her. The male asked for directions to the village and to Creekside, when she noticed that he had his hand down his pants and was masturbating.
The woman returned home and called the police, who searched the area with the dog team.
In both cases the suspect was a Caucasian male aged 20 to 40 with a Canadian or American accent. The height of the first male was five-foot-eleven.
There were differences in the descriptions of the suspects. The first male was wearing a cream-coloured jacket and the second male was reported to be wearing a dark jacket.
A composite sketch of the suspect(s) will be shared with the public once it's complete.
Staff Sergeant Steve LeClair of the Whistler RCMP said it was possible that it was the same suspect.
"Given the fact that nothing like this has happened in a couple of months and then suddenly we get two incidences in a short time frame in the same area, the chances are good that they're related," he said.
LeClair could not say whether the incident was related to other reports from 2011, including a flasher in Brio, a masturbator in the area of the skatepark and a woman who was grabbed in the Alpine Meadows subdivision. These cases are still under investigation.
"We don't want to alarm the public, but people should be aware of their surroundings when they're travelling, particularly at night," he said. "It's a good idea to travel in pairs, both men and women, typically in dark areas. It's not a very common occurrence... and we've looked at all of these cases to see if they could be related."
