Police say he may have tried to abduct another child
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
By STEVE THOMPSON / The Dallas Morning News
stevethompson@dallasnews.com

Before dawn Tuesday, a mother went to check on her 8-year-old daughter inside a bedroom of their northwest Dallas apartment. There kneeling over the girl's wood-frame bed, the mother says, was a man.

The mother screamed, the man fled, and now police are investigating whether he is the same man involved in another incident late last month.

In that encounter a few miles away, a man apparently tried to abduct another 8-year-old girl as she walked home from school. The descriptions in the two cases closely match: a Hispanic man with a light complexion, about 25 to 30 years old, 5 feet 9 inches, and 140 pounds.

"We're clearly looking at that kind of connection," said Lt. Ches Williams, head of the Dallas police crimes against children unit. "But we're just too early into this to know."

Tuesday's encounter came about 4 a.m. at the North Ridge Apartments on Harvest Hill Road. A 33-year-old mother who lives with her husband and two children awoke for work, went to the bathroom, then went to check on her daughter

The mother's name is not being used because The Dallas Morning News does not typically publish the names of relatives of possible sexual assault victims.

The mother says she pushed open the bedroom door and saw the man on his knees, his hands on the girl's bed. She screamed.

The man ran to the bedroom window, which had been unlatched and was now open, and leaped outside. The husband, awakened by the screams, ran outside to catch the man, but he could not.

The girl later told police the man touched her arm, shoulder and leg. She said that he told her: "I love you – go back to sleep.".

The mother said she feels that the man must have been watching them for him to have found his way inside her daughter's bedroom.

"To be honest, I think maybe he's been in here before," she said. "But I can't prove that. I don't know."

She said she hadn't heard of the attempted abduction reported Jan. 24, which bears similarities to her own family's encounter.

In that case, the girl said she was walking home from David G. Burnet Elementary School when a man confronted her in the parking lot of an apartment complex on the 3100 block of Park Lane.

"Your mother told me to pick you up and take you home," the man said in Spanish.

The girl turned and ran back toward the school, and the man chased her. He grabbed her from behind and they fell to the ground before the girl was able to get away. He was seen fleeing in a small gray car with a rear spoiler.

Police are cautioning parents to keep doors and windows locked, particularly during upcoming months.

"These things really do have a tendency to pick up in the springtime, when things get warm and windows get left open," Lt. Williams said.

After Tuesday's incident, that family now has extra fasteners on their windows. The mother said her daughter had trouble sleeping Tuesday night and wouldn't go into her bedroom even to get dressed.

"I don't feel safe," the mother said. "I'm having a hard time sleeping myself."

Rebecca Lopez of WFAA-TV (Channel contributed to this report.

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