Suspect Sought in Slaying, Rape in Riverside County

A motorist picked up two girls in Riverside, drove them to a remote area northeast of this city, then killed one and raped the other, authorities said Tuesday.

One girl, age 13, was released in Moreno Valley. After an extensive search, authorities found the body of her 14-year-old friend, Diane Harper, who also may have been raped, said Rick Bogan, Riverside County deputy coroner.

The victim’s description of the events was sketchy, authorities said.

“We don’t know what the connection between our victims and our suspect is,” said sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Dotts. “We don’t believe they were hitchhiking . . . yet they got in the car willingly and they must have been with him some time” before the attacks on Monday.

The ride--in a brown, compact car of unspecified make--began in La Sierra, a residential neighborhood in the hills of western Riverside. Somewhere between La Sierra and the scene of the crimes, possibly in Moreno Valley, the trio stopped to buy beer at a convenience store, Dotts said. They then drove to the remote area between Moreno Valley and Redlands, taking a dirt road east from Redlands Boulevard, south of San Timoteo Canyon Road.

There, one of the girls “was taken up a hill into a remote glen, where she was killed, apparently from head trauma,” Bogan said. The weapon “may have been a rock, may have been a boot; it may have been anything. We don’t really know.”

The second victim, Dotts said, “did see the body, we think, but she said she did not see the killing.”

After the killing, the assailant returned to his car and “got the other girl,” Bogan said. “She was brought up to the same area and raped, assaulted.” But the attacker then drove her into Moreno Valley and released her on a street corner.

“He dropped her off and warned her not to say anything and left,” Bogan said. “We haven’t figured that one out yet.”

The girl, or someone who came to her aid, telephoned the Sheriff’s Department about 4 p.m., Dotts said. It took several hours for her to lead investigators to the crime scene because she was unfamiliar with the Moreno Valley area.

Detectives drove her along “practically every winding road in the county” before finding the right dirt road, Dotts said.