90-year-old ambushed at senior home fends off sexual assault attempt, FL cops say
A man broke into a senior living facility and lied in wait to sexually assault a 90-year-old woman, two weeks after police said he tried to do the same to a 76-year-old woman, Florida authorities said.
Both women fought him off, and he ran away, law enforcement said.
On April 29, a 90-year-old resident of a senior living facility in Orlando told deputies she came home from dinner and turned on Jeopardy in her apartment, not noticing anything out of the ordinary, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office wrote in an arrest affidavit.
She walked into her bedroom closet when she “noticed a shadow behind her,” and she turned to find herself staring at a strange man exposing his genitalia, deputies said.
The man, later identified as 26-year-old Deriko Hill, pushed her onto the floor and pulled a shelf down on top of them as she punched and kicked to fight him off, deputies said.
He tried to pull her clothes off, but she continued fighting and eventually he left, saying “I’m sorry ma’am,” she recounted to authorities.
The woman crawled to her bathroom and pulled the emergency cord, then the facility staff called 911, deputies said.
By that time, Hill had fled, and deputies took to social media to share surveillance footage of a man entering the facility in the hopes someone could identify him.
Investigators also sent her underwear to a lab for DNA analysis and eventually hit a match with a case being investigated by the Orlando Police Department that had happened two weeks earlier, according to the report.
In that case, a 76-year-old woman reported she woke up to find a stranger in her bedroom, police said. The man pushed her down and tried to take off his pants, but the woman screamed for her neighbor, and the accused attacker ran off, according to police.
In the weeks following the attacks, a senior living facility nearby reported that a young man matching Hill’s description was repeatedly seen stalking the property, trying to open locked doors and telling staff he was there to see a family member, authorities said.
On May 20, deputies responded to a report of a suspicious person inside a senior living facility, but Hill ran out through a back door when they arrived, law enforcement said. He was eventually taken into custody after a chase.
When confronted by investigators, Hill said he was looking for older women to “make love” to, according to the report. But he told investigators “he was forceful with them” and wrote apology letters to the two women, deputies said.
He’s charged with attempted sexual battery, battery on a person 65 or older and burglary of a dwelling with assault or battery.
This story was originally published May 21, 2025 at 12:24 PM with the headline "90-year-old ambushed at senior home fends off sexual assault attempt, FL cops say."