Notorious LI 'South Shore Rapist' Scott Carroll Dead In Prison

LONG ISLAND, NY—From 1983 to 1987 the South Shore of Long Island was terrorized by a serial rapist nicknamed "the South Shore rapist." With a ski mask on, he attacked girls and women—one as young as 10 years old—while they slept in bedrooms in Babylon, Bay Shore and Islip.

In 1988, a 27-year-old Staten Island factory worker named Scott Carroll was convicted for 31 counts of rape and burglary and sentenced to 650 years in prison. He died in Coxsackie Correctional Facility on Friday having served 33 years of his sentence, at age 60.

In 2017, he was denied parole. Because of maximum consecutive sentencing rules, it's possible his term would have been capped at 50 years, letting him go free at age 77 in 2038.

Carroll was convicted based on recordings of his voice played for his victims. Police and prosecutors say he stalked his victims for days and held a screwdriver to their throats during the attacks.

A 1988 article about the conviction in The New York Times mentions that another key piece of evidence from the trial was luggage stolen from famous author Mario Puzo's home in Bay Shore, one of Carroll's burglary targets.

The New York State Department of Corrections website lists Carroll as deceased as of Oct. 1 but does not list a cause of death.

Victim advocacy group Parents for Megan's Law and the Crime Victim Center welcomed the news of Carroll's death.

"Victims, their families, and crime victim advocates will no longer have to fight to keep this dangerous sexual predator behind bars and our communities will never have to worry that Scott Carroll will be preying on our most vulnerable," Executive Director Laura Ahearn stated on Wednesday.