Suspect Pleads Innocent in Slaying of Girl

A drifter arrested in Oregon earlier this week pleaded innocent Thursday to charges of sexually assaulting and murdering a 6-year-old Fresno girl, then setting her body on fire in a schoolyard.

Bobby Lee Cole, 43, was arraigned in Fresno Municipal Court one day after being returned from Medford, Ore., where he waived extradition.

His court appearance came the same day that detectives investigating the case told reporters that two residents in the neighborhood where Teresa Cervantes was raped and murdered have confirmed they saw the little girl’s suspected attacker in the area.

Cole was ordered held without bail. The public defender was appointed to represent him, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for July 30.

Authorities said Teresa was raped, sodomized and strangled by an attacker who then doused her body with flammable liquid and set it afire.

Cole was arrested Monday in Medford, Ore., when police found him rummaging through a Salvation Army drop box.

Officers connected Cole to the Cervantes murder when they found newspaper clippings about the killing in his wallet.

Two special circumstances were filed against Cole--that the murder occurred during a rape and during an act of sodomy. The special circumstances will allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty if Cole is convicted of first-degree murder.