Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994 TAG: 9406210104
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By RON BROWN and TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If the tag is valid, that could mean the suspect bought the car he was driving in the last 30 days. That could make it easier for investigators to track the suspect.
Temporary tags are issued by car dealers to allow buyers time to register cars with the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. The DMV issues tags with traceable identification numbers to car dealers, said Natalie Smith, assistant director of public relations for the department.
The car dealership then is required to retain information - the name of the buyer, address and type of car - on file for five years.
Car dealers do not pass the temporary-tag information on to the DMV.
Police do not have the number of the temporary tag on the suspect's vehicle and may have to depend on dealers to provide information on cars sold in the last month that match the description of the suspect's car.
Police believe that the suspect's car is a 1984 silver or light blue Ford EXP, said Capt. Gary Guilliams of the Botetourt County Sheriff's Office.
Guilliams would not elaborate on the role the tag is playing in the investigation.
A Roanoke Valley psychologist who has developed a psychological profile of the suspect for police said the man could have come from as far away as Staunton, Guilliams said.
The suspect was last seen after he dropped off the 15-year-old boy at a service station south of Buchanan.
Police also are working on a computer drawing composite of the suspect. Roanoke County detective D.J. Herrick said the victim of the attack and a Botetourt County deputy who saw the man the night of the incident are being interviewed to develop a drawing.
Herrick also said investigators are awaiting results of a swab test done on the victim at a hospital several hours after the alleged act occurred. "There were no physical injuries," he said.
Botetourt County Sheriff Reed Kelly said the swab test could provide police DNA evidence if a suspect is identified.
Police believe the weekend incident may be tied to a similar molestation in late March of another teen-ager who was abducted in the Hechinger's parking lot near Valley View Mall and sodomized in Botetourt County.
Both times, a suspect took the teen-agers to a parking area behind a Winn-Dixie grocery store in Cloverdale where he began to perform oral sex on them, police say.
Kelly said the the suspect in both cases matched the same general description.
Authorities said the molestation of the second boy was interrupted when a Botetourt County deputy arrived at the scene. The suspect got out of his car and said to the deputy, "I guess you want us to leave."
The deputy, thinking the suspect was with his girlfriend, allowed them to leave without further questioning. The teen-ager remained silent, later telling police he was too scared to protest. The boy, a Catawba resident, originally got into the suspect's car after the suspect flagged down a carload of teen-agers on Virginia 311. The suspect flashed his high beams off and on to get the teens to stop, then identified himself as a "Roanoke investigator."
He told the teen-ager he was investigating an "incident" that happened earlier Friday night on Williamson Road.
Herrick said the boy, after leaving his friend's car, talked to the suspect, then returned saying "he had to go with the investigator" and would meet his friends at one of their homes a short time later.
When he didn't show up, one of the other teen-agers told his parents, who then notified the parents of the victim.
by CNB