SAN DIEGO -- A Tierrasanta businessman accused in a home invasion and sexual assault series committed suicide in jail, according to the San Diego Police Department.

Sources told 10News that Thomas James Parker hanged himself Friday morning between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. in his cell at downtown's Central Jail. He was found dead by jail officials making rounds.

Sheriff's deputies, the jail's medical staff, firefighters and paramedics attempted lifesaving measures, but he was soon pronounced dead, said Sgt. Roy Frank of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Parker had apparently used a sheet to take his own life and was not on suicide watch, according to deputies.

Parker 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.

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 the University of California, San Diego, as well as Mission Valley.

Based on DNA evidence and other similarities in the assaults, authorities said they planned to charge Parker with all seven assaults.

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.

Getting the man responsible had been a high priority for the San Diego Police Department.

"Our efforts paid off (Wednesday) when (the) victim decided she was going to fight back against her attacker," said SDPD Capt. Jim Collins.

Parker had been scheduled to be arraigned Monday.