SAN DIEGO -- Authorities say an inmate who apparently committed suicide Friday by hanging himself in a cell at the San Diego Central Jail had been accused of seven seven sexual assaults on women throughout the city over the past year.

The body of Thomas James Parker, 39, was found hanging by a sheet around 7 a.m. by deputies conducting a security check, according to the county coroner and sheriff's officials. Jail staff and emergency officials attempted lifesaving measures, but he was soon pronounced dead, authorities said.

The Tierrasanta man was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly tried to rape a 33-year-old Mission Valley woman in her garage, threatening her with a knife and grabbing her.

The Escala Circle resident screamed and fought back, and the assailant fled.

Parker -- a married father of two young children and co-owner of It's a Grind Coffee House in Little Italy -- was captured by police at a shopping center a few blocks away with help from passersby, including two off-duty Border Patrol agents.

No one answered calls to the coffee house this morning,

Police said he had been linked through DNA and other evidence to seven sexual assaults.

Genetic evidence implicated Parker in at least three of seven home-invasion sexual assaults and robberies that began in June 2008, San Diego police said.

The assaults occurred in Carmel Valley, Tierrasanta, the College Area and near UC San Diego, as well as Mission Valley.

Most of the victims were young Asian women, and in all of the attacks, the assailant demanded money before sexually assaulting the women, police said.