Police are looking for a male suspect after a woman was violently sexually assaulted Monday evening in an east Toronto cemetery.

The woman, 61, was visiting the grave of a loved one at Pine Hills Cemetery, located at Birchmount Avenue and St. Clair Avenue East.

She was walking along a paved path at around 7 p.m. when a man dragged her off the path and attacked her, said Const. Isabelle Cotton of the Toronto Police Service.

A passerby spotted the woman lying in the cemetery several hours later and called for help. EMS officials arrived at 10 p.m. and she was rushed to hospital with serious head injuries.

Toronto police searched the area around the cemetery, but were unable to find a suspect.

The suspect is described as a white male, aged 30 to 40, with shoulder-length hair tied in a ponytail. He is clean-shaven; about five feet, six inches tall and has a skinny build, police said.

The assault comes almost 10 months after another grisly attack at the same cemetery in which a homeless man was beaten to death.

Donald Constantine Jackson, 71, was beaten Sept. 12 and died six days later in hospital.

Merhawi Tekle, 26, and a 14-year-old girl, who can't be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, were charged with first-degree murder in his death.

With files from The Canadian Press