Leon County Sheriff's Deputies said DNA has linked a suspect accused of sexually assaulting elderly women in Marquez, to Lavaca County.

The man could be responsible for eight sexual assaults statewide and deputies said they weren't ruling out the possibility of other victims.

Deputies said the suspect attacked a 77-year-old Marquez woman in July, and an 80-year-old in September. Investigators said DNA left at the first scene linked the man to sexual assaults in Yoakum, in Lavaca County, where a 90-year-old woman was targeted earlier this year. Deputies also believe the same man committed two unsolved sexual assaults in Bell County.

In all eight cases the victims were over 60 and lived alone.

Women in the small town of Marquez are watching their backs, ever since a woman in her late '70s and another in her '80s woke up to a man in her bedroom and was then sexually assaulted.

"She just started yelling at him, get out of my house," said one of the victim's friends, who didn't want to be identified. She and investigators believe the man is also trying to target her home.

"It's regular, he's here a lot," said the woman, who said the man removed burglar bars from one of her windows.

"He knows these places, he's staked them out prior to and we believe, you know, that there's gonna be more," said Lieutenant Kevin Ellis of the Leon County Sheriff's Office.

One problem: none of the victims have been able to give a definitive description.

"Well everybody that walks down the road you're just looking at them. You're suspicious of anything," said Stephanie Jones, a Marquez resident.

Jones is trying to prevent the predator from coming in her sliding glass door by blocking it with plywood.

"It just got to where we didn't feel safe," said Jones.

Her neighbor, Cassandra McGinty, now has a handgun.

"I started carrying it with me unloaded and on safety and then when I get home, before I get out of my vehicle, I load it up and put one in the chamber and I have it in my hand before I walk in my house and I go through my whole house with it," said McGinty.

McGinty and Jones said they are just some of the many women in Marquez who are sleeping with one eye open.

The suspect cut phone lines before he entered the homes which disabled alarms and meant the women had to go somewhere else to call 911.

In total, he took $10,000 from the victims in Leon and Lavaca Counties, including a Yoakum woman's life savings.

Leon County Deputies said they are using additional state and federal officers to assist in this case. They believe the man they are looking for was in Lavaca County in January and February of this year, and Marquez this summer.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Leon County Sheriff's Office at 903- 536-2749. Currently the only physical description deputies have of the man is that he is less than six feet tall.