THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 18, 1996 TAG: 9610180527
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PAUL SOUTH, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SOUTHERN SHORES LENGTH: 46 lines
A man who propositioned a male Manteo High School student is probably not a suspect in a series of homicides in the Chesapeake area nor a Sept. 6 sexual assault there, police said Thursday.
Southern Shores Detective Ken Forney said that while the teen-ager gave a tentative identification of the man based on a police drawing of a man wanted in an attempted sexual assault in Chesapeake, the drawing and description were generic.
Forney said Chesapeake authorities told him Thursday that they ``don't believe that there's a connection between the serial killer and this incident.''
The incident has raised concern in Dare County's gay and lesbian community. A group calling itself the Outer Banks Gay and Lesbian Club has distributed fliers to its members recounting the incident and displaying the police drawing of the murder suspect.
But Forney said other information gathered in the investigation of the Dare County incident is not consistent with the attempted sexual assault - which happened on a rural dirt road in Chesapeake - or the serial killings, in which bodies of nude men have been found in isolated areas of the city since 1987.
``The man who approached the kid was driving a late-model Cougar or Thunderbird, with North Carolina plates,'' Forney said. ``The suspect in Chesapeake was in a van. With the vehicle being different, and being out of Charlotte, I'm kind of at loose ends. We're still checking out everything, making sure our I's are dotted and our T's are crossed, but they're probably not related.''
Forney said the attempted pick-up of the high school student may have been an isolated incident.
``It could have been a one-shot thing,'' Forney said. ``The man followed the kid to his street, made a half-turn, and then went on.''
The incident occurred last week when the man followed the youth home from school. He repeatedly flashed his lights to get the teen to pull over.
The boy did, and the man approached, and asked whether he wanted to have ``a good time,'' according to the flier. The boy refused, and drove home. He told his parents, who immediately notified police.
Dare County Sheriff A.L. ``Bert'' Austin said Thursday that while his office took the initial incident, it will not be the primary agency investigating the Dare County incident.
``We will do whatever we can to assist Southern Shores,'' Austin said. by CNB