FARGO – The Fargo Police Department has issued a warrant and is asking for the public’s help in locating a sexual assault suspect with a prior criminal history, including a 1997 arrest for stealing underwear from a sorority house.
Shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday, police officials sent a news release asking for assistance in finding Stanley Joe Busche, a 39-year-old named as a “person of interest” in the Dec. 20 sexual assault near the North Dakota State University campus.
He was still a person of interest, not an official suspect, at 10:30 a.m. Saturday when police called a news conference about the case, according to Lt. Joel Vettel.
But the Fargo Police Department announced shortly after 3 p.m. through its Facebook page that an arrest warrant had been issued for Busche. He’s now facing charges of gross sexual imposition and terrorizing, as well as two counts of attempted gross sexual imposition.
During the news conference, Interim Police Chief David Todd said Busche was interviewed about the sexual assault late Friday afternoon, but there wasn’t enough evidence to detain him at that time.
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Officers were contacted by Busche’s family late Friday night, saying they were concerned about suicidal comments he had made. Todd said police now believe he could have access to weapons and be a danger to himself.
On Dec. 20, a knife-wielding man entered the Bison Arms apartment building near the NDSU campus and ordered three international students to take off their clothes.
Police said the man assaulted one of the victims and was attempting to assault another when the victims escaped the room and got help. The man fled the scene and police were unable to locate him that night.
Police later released a description of a suspect, a white male between 5 feet 6 and 5 feet 9 inches tall with a slender build. Police said he was wearing a black coat, dark pants, blue gloves and a black cloth over his face.
Busche became a person of interest in this case as a result of new tips generated by the police’s Dec. 23 release of trail camera images taken near the Bison Arms apartment building that had been collected while investigating several peeping incidents this past April.
While police made an arrest in that case, other images from that trail camera showed another individual who police now believe may be Busche, according to Todd.
Busche has a prior criminal history showing similar behavior, according to Vettel, including an arrest in Sept. 1997 for burglarizing a bedroom at the Kappa Delta sorority house near NDSU when he was 22 and stealing dozens of bras and underwear.
He later pleaded guilty and had to replace hundreds of dollars’ worth of underwear and bras, according to a Forum report from 1997.
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In 2002, Busche was charged with felony burglary after police were called to a ground floor apartment in north Fargo when the tenant heard a noise and found the window screen had been cut. Residents confronted Busche as they saw him walking away from the apartment, and he was arrested at the scene.
Busche was last seen in an area of rural Richland County by Walcott, N.D., according to Todd, though he wouldn’t elaborate on the “technology” that was used to find him there. Subsequent searches of that area by law enforcement hadn’t turned up the man, Todd said.
Busche was driving a maroon 1995 Pontiac Grand Prix SE two-door coupe with North Dakota license plate number ESN183.
Police urge anyone who sees Busche or has information about the case to contact law enforcement, not confront the man on their own.
