Underwear,

women’s jewelry found in suspect’s home.

When police raided the home of the shadowy man they believe to be the Pillowcase Rapist, they carted away women’s panties, a leopard-print bra, plenty of women’s jewelry and even a military-grade smoke grenade.

Prosecutors recently identified Robert Eugene Koehler as the suspected Pillowcase Rapist, the man who terrorized South Florida in the 1980s by sexually assaulting dozens of women. He remained free until last week, when he was arrested and his DNA was matched to at least 25 victims, authorities said.

Koehler kept multiple safes at his Brevard County home, and police investigators have used a warrant to confiscate many items as evidence.

According to paperwork filed by police after the raid, police confiscated six laptops, VHS tapes, 58 USB thumb drives, 17 pairs of woman’s underwear, a leopard print bra, dozens of pieces of women’s jewelry, two rosary beads and even a device used by the military to illuminate a battlefield. The police intend to sort out whether the items found at his home belong to the victims.

Koehler, a 60-year-old sex offender who lives in Palm Bay, was arrested Jan. 18, just five days after his son’s DNA came back as a near match for a decadesold rape.

The younger Koehler wasn’t born when that woman was raped in 1983, so authorities soon looked at the family tree to focus on the elder Koehler as the rape suspect.

Authorities so far have linked the elder Koehler to at least 25 rapes dating to the 1980s.

He was arrested in 1990 after admitting to raping a woman that year in Palm Beach County.

Even though the rape in 1990 was strikingly similar to the dozens of rapes believed to be done by the Pillowcase Rapist in Broward and Dade counties just a few years earlier, authorities never linked Koehler to those rapes — and Koehler walked out of the courthouse on probation.

The elusive Pillowcase Rapist began terrorizing the community in 1981.

He’d break into town homes and apartments and typically cover his victims’ heads with pillows as he raped them. His targets were attractive young working women.

Records say the Pillowcase Rapist collected valuables before leaving homes after the attack.