2 Accosted by Molester; Valley Incidents at 32 : Crime: One girl is grabbed on school grounds but escapes. Man tries to lure another girl into a vehicle.

Despite widespread publicity, a serial child molester allegedly accosted two more children Friday, returning to a neighborhood where he had been three days earlier and entering school grounds for the first time, Los Angeles police said.

Friday’s incidents bring to 32 the number attributed to the suspect, according to police, who are now linking him to four earlier attacks that were previously thought to be unrelated.

“He’s obviously obsessed with this type of behavior,” said Cmdr. John Moran of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Bureau. “His obsession has overcome any fear or publicity.”

In the most serious incident Friday, a man approached two young girls as they carried trash to a dumpster near a driveway of Van Nuys Elementary School at about 10:15 a.m.

One of the girls was far enough away to flee unharmed, but the other, who had bent down to pick up litter, didn’t see him approach, police said.

“He grabbed her, but she pulled away and got away from him,” Lt. Joseph Garcia said. “That’s the first time he has stepped on campus.”

On Tuesday, another student was attacked on her way to the same school. That incident had marked the molester’s first publicized attack in more than two weeks. The school is several blocks from the LAPD’s Van Nuys station, where a 25-officer molestation task force and all San Fernando Valley operations are headquartered.

News of the most recent incidents spread quickly through Valley schools, where officials made public address announcements, ordered teachers and counselors to talk to their students and sent more warning letters home to parents.

“This person or persons has to be apprehended,” said David Almada, principal at Robert A. Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks, where a girl was approached in one of Friday’s incidents.

“These kids are suffering, even if they are not attacked--just threat of it is devastating to our children,” Almada said. “How can they learn under this pressure? It is a sad situation.”

As the molester, who police now say is responsible for at least 32 incidents since February, including a rape, returned to familiar territory on Friday, authorities were puzzled and alarmed by apparent changes in his tactics. Investigators based their observations on the two new cases and four earlier incidents that, upon review, have been linked to the serial molester.

* In four of the new or reclassified cases, he struck in the afternoon instead of morning, police said. His most recent prior attack had been at 12:15 p.m.

* In one case, he had another man and two women in the car with him. Moran said police “don’t have much to go on” as to whether the three passengers in the man’s car during one incident in early November were knowing accomplices.

* The molester sometimes uses “hats and hoods and so on,” perhaps to throw off police, Moran said.

* Police said that, in many cases, he tried to lure his victims into a maroon vehicle, possibly a Cadillac or other sedan, with offers of a ride and promises of toys and candy, Moran said.

Police said the first of Friday’s two incidents occurred at 7:50 a.m. when the suspect pulled up next to a 12-year-old seventh-grader as she walked half a block from Millikan School in Sherman Oaks. Two of the girls’ friends were nearby and reported seeing a man drive up to the girl and ask her if she wanted a ride.

Although Moran said the man was driving a maroon sedan in the latest series of assaults, the three girls told school officials and some police officers the man was driving a maroon van. “That threw us off at the start,” said Garcia, “but we decided to err on the side of caution and include it.”

Authorities late Friday attributed the discrepancies--such as the use of a sedan or a van--to the fact that the victims are all young and probably were too startled to remember some details of the incidents.

“There was some confusion, mainly because of the (method) and the use of this vehicle, which has been used since November,” Moran said. “But today’s incidents certainly lead us to believe they are all connected.”

None of the girls were harmed in Friday’s incidents, and they immediately notified school officials, who called police.

The other four incidents that police announced on Friday had been newly attributed to the same molester are:

* On Nov. 2, a 15-year-old girl was approached near Canoga Park High School, but the incident was not reported to police until 22 days later, Moran said.

* A 14-year-old was approached near the same school Nov. 22.

* On Nov. 19, a 12-year-old was approached at Christopher Columbus Middle School.

* A 13-year-old was approached on Wednesday, Dec. 1, also near Columbus School.

None of the girls in those four incidents were harmed.

All those incidents occurred in the afternoon, in contrast to most of the previous cases, in which the molester struck as the children walked to school in the morning.

“That’s one of the things that initially didn’t lead us to believe they were tied in,” Moran said.

Parents at both of the schools involved in Friday’s incidents were confused and worried.

“With all this happening, I think the police should be taking more precautions,” said Van Nuys Elementary School PTA President Mariano Castillo, who was interviewed in Spanish.

“We had a report of another possible attack today, so the police need to take more precautions and (pay) more attention,” he said. “The parents, of course, need to take more precautions too, and walk their children to school.”

Jill McNulty, Millikan PTA co-president and the mother of daughters age 15 and 17, voiced her frustrations.

“It’s really hard to comprehend why we can’t find this guy. I don’t know what else to do. I make sure my kids are safe,” she said.

“If this can happen, I don’t know where they’re patrolling,” McNulty said. “There is not enough police protection.

“What else do you do? We’ve got to find this guy,” she said.

School officials at Millikan said warnings and educating students about the dangers of molesters helped Friday’s potential victim avoid an outright attack. The girl and her two friends all became suspicious of the man in the vehicle, and immediately notified Almada, who called police.

The girls--and the victim at Van Nuys Elementary School--have been interviewed and shown sketches of the suspected molester. He is believed to be a black male between the ages of 35 and 45, weighing 185 to 210 pounds, and is described as balding with a close-cropped beard.

At Millikan, many students appeared anxious Friday about the news that the attacker had sought a victim so close to campus. Several dozen seventh-graders sought counseling and solace during lunch.

“They just needed to express themselves,” said counselor Jimmy Rivers, “and we were there to listen to them, advise them and tell them that it is OK to be afraid.”

Many other reports and sightings flooded into schools and police stations throughout the day Friday, keeping nerves jangled and authorities hopping from one location to another.

“We’re getting notices from the schools by the hour, of children seeing something,” said Sara A. Coughlin, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s assistant superintendent for the 131 elementary schools in the San Fernando Valley. “There is a great deal of fright out there. Anyone who is strange, or who looks at children or talks to them, is being reported.”

But Coughlin and other school officials and police acknowledged that such vigilance has its price.

“You don’t know whether children are really seeing these things or whether they have been warned and are frightened,” Coughlin said.

“We’d rather have them be alert than not. But it is making the job more difficult, because there are so many, many reports coming in.”

Staff writers Abigail Goldman and Julie Tamaki contributed to this story.