Santee : Police Release Description of Girl’s Abductor

Investigators with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department’s child abuse unit have released a description and a composite picture of the man suspected of abducting and molesting a 9-year-old Santee girl.

The man is described as being 18 to 30 years old, between 5-foot-9 and 6 feet tall, 150 to 200 pounds, with dark, curly, collar-length hair and a mustache. At the time of the kidnaping, the man was wearing a black sleeveless shirt and blue jeans and was driving a salmon-colored four-wheel-drive truck.

Sheriff’s Department investigators produced the description after questioning kidnap victim Kelly Anne Yette for several hours Monday, Sgt. Ron Cottingham said. Although the composite is fairly general, Cottingham said it is much more detailed than an earlier description of the suspect that sheriff’s deputies culled from eyewitness accounts by the girl’s playmates.

“We have a lot more confidence in this (composite),” Cottingham said. “She’s a very bright and articulate young lady, and she’s holding up very well.”

Kelly was abducted about 8 p.m. Saturday while playing with her twin brother and friends in front of her home in the 9400 block of Carlton Oaks Drive and was missing until 11:30 a.m. Sunday, when a motorist found her wandering in El Cajon.

Cottingham said the man apparently lured the girl away from the group by joining the children in a game of hide-and-seek. After abducting the girl, the man drove her in his truck to a house somewhere in the El Cajon-Santee area. Cottingham said sheriff’s detectives drove around the area with the girl and her mother Monday afternoon, trying to find that house.

“She has been able to describe the house for us, but she has not been able to take us to this house,” Cottingham said.

Cottingham said he worries that the man could strike again.

“A person who’s prone to committing this type of crime is always dangerous,” he said. “The threat to the community is, if he’s willing to grab a child, he could grab any child.”