09/11/2002

By DOUG IRVING, kgw.com Staff

Gresham police have asked the FBI to develop a psychological profile of the man who sneaked into a 7-year-old girl’s bedroom and attacked her early Wednesday.

It is the second time that police have turned to the FBI for help as they investigate the nighttime attack of a little girl. The agency already is working on a separate profile of the man who raped an 8-year-old girl last month.

The girl was attacked inside this home in Gresham. (KGW Photo)

“We’re looking at both cases, we’re not connecting them,” McCormick said. “But we are looking into the similarities between the two cases, we’re not discounting that.”

The girl attacked Wednesday was treated at Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center and interviewed by a psychologist. Gresham police would not discuss the details of the attack, but said the girl was not seriously hurt. "She has some injuries," McCormick said. "But, for whatever reason, he left" before seriously injuring her. "We don't know why."

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Police would not say whether the attack was sexual but said the girl was not raped. They do not know whether the man intended to rape the girl but was scared off. They also would not describe her injuries.

The girl was sleeping alone in her bedroom when a young man sneaked in after midnight. She described her attacker as a tall, thin white man, in his teens or 20s, with short, dark hair. Police have not been able to draw up a sketch based on her description.

“We’re dealing with a 7-year-old, and we’re dealing with high trauma here,” McCormick said. “We’re not going to be pushing her.”

Police would not say how they believe the man entered the girl’s room, on the ground floor of a three-level house. They did not find signs that the man had forced his way in.

The girl’s parents and older brother were sleeping in other rooms at the time. She ran into her parents’ room after the attack; they called police at 12:42 a.m.

A search dog tracked the man’s trail to busy West Powell Boulevard, then lost it. McCormick did not know whether detectives found any physical evidence, such as fingerprints or footprints, around the girl’s bedroom.

About 90 registered sex offenders live within 50 blocks of the girl’s home, McCormick said. Police plan to interview them and take DNA swabs, the same approach they took to the rape of the 8-year-old girl last month.

The East County Major Crimes Team is investigating both attacks. McCormick did not know how long it will take to develop the psychological profiles, but said investigators can learn the suspect’s likely age and background from them.

The attack Wednesday happened nearly three miles from the house where the 8-year-old girl was brutally raped shortly before 4 a.m. on Aug. 9. Police have said the attacker in that case may have been stalking the girl, or may have seen an open window and decided to sneak in.

Two Gresham detectives traveled to Klamath Falls after noticing similarities between a man arrested there and a sketch of the suspect in the girl's rape. Their interviews with the man, accused of raping two nuns and killing one, produced “nothing productive,” McCormick said. Police have not named the man, Maximiliano Silerio Esparza, a suspect in the girl’s rape.

“So far, there’s nothing connecting him,” McCormick said.