Texas Man Dies While Raping Elderly Woman

REFUGIO, Texas, June 14, 2011— -- Investigators say a man died while in the act of raping an elderly South Texas woman, The Associated Press reported.

The Refugio County Sheriff's Office identified the man as 53-year-old Isabel Chavelo Gutierrez. Sheriff's Sgt. Gary Wright says the incident happened June 2 after the man rode two miles by bicycle from his home to that of his 77-year-old victim in the tiny coastal community of Tivoli.

He says the man, weighing between 230 and 250 pounds, sneaked into the woman's house and raped her at knifepoint.

During the attack, the assailant said he wasn't feeling well, rolled over and died. His body was sent to the Nueces County medical examiner in Corpus Christi for autopsy.

Gutierrez was a registered sexual offender on parole from asentence for aggravated sexual assault and indecency with a child. Gutierrez had been released from prison in 2008.

Gutierrez was armed with a pocketknife, police told the Corpus Christie Caller Times. He rode from his own home in Tivoli, where he was registered as a sex offender, and entered the home by lowering the glass pane on a screen door.

The woman said she saw Gutierrez at a local post office one day before the June 2 attack, police told the newspaper.

After he lost consciousness during the attack, the woman drove from her house and called her daughter, who then alerted authorities, the newspaper reported.