Serial Molester Being Sought by Police of 5 Cities

Police in at least five cities are looking for a serial child molester who in the last five years has been using pornographic magazines to bait children into secluded areas.

Investigators in Irvine, Newport Beach, Orange, Santa Ana and Tustin said the man--described as tall, in his 30s with dark or salt-and-pepper hair--has attacked both boys and girls ranging from 5 to 9 years old as they walked to or from school.

In Irvine alone, 12 boys and girls ages 5 through 9 were similarly molested in the last five years, Lt. Sam Allevato said.

The most recent molestation in the county occurred in Orange. Police there released a composite drawing this week of a man who molested a 9-year-old girl on Nov. 11.

On that day shortly after 8 a.m., the victim was walking to school in the 800 block of North Adele Street when she saw a magazine on the ground and paused to look at it, Detective Brian Adair said.

She then heard a man yelling at her to bring the magazine to him or he would call her parents. Scared, the girl handed the magazine to him and saw that it was pornographic, Adair said.

The man grabbed her arm, yanked her into an apartment complex, pushed her into a vacant apartment and took her to an empty upstairs bedroom, she told detectives. There, he threatened to call police if the girl did not take off her clothes.

The molester then fondled her and masturbated in front of her, Adair said. After he left, she dressed and walked outside. She saw some friends walking to school and told them what happened, and they walked her home.

Her mother called police, and Adair started investigating the case after he came back from vacation Dec. 6, he said.

Investigators are hoping a spray can retrieved from the empty apartment might yield a fingerprint that could lead to the molester, Adair said.

He said the girl will be getting counseling soon.

“Children don’t forget this. They’re still going to be traumatized,” Adair said.

In Santa Ana, the same method was used Oct. 11 as a 7-year-old girl walked home from school about 5:30 p.m. in the 2400 block of South Fairview Street, police said.

In Irvine, the last reported incident happened in the Woodbridge area about five months ago.

“It’s the same kind of method with the pornographic magazine, but we’re not sure if it’s the same guy,” Irvine’s Lt. Allevato said.

A 9-year-old boy walking to school saw a pornographic magazine on the ground and was scolded by a strange man when he bent down to look at the pictures, Allevato said.

The man said he would not call police if the boy followed him behind a trash bin, police said. Behind the bin, the man masturbated in front of the boy before running away.

A year and a half ago in Tustin, a magazine on the ground was used to lure a 9-year-old girl near a trash bin, where she was fondled, detectives said. The girl had been on her way to school on Pasadena Street.

In Newport Beach, a man masturbated in front of an 8-year-old boy in some bushes at 963 Baywood Drive in 1991. Three years earlier an 8-year-old girl was fondled after a man forced her into a laundry room at an apartment complex, 1214 Rutland Road, police said.

Both children had stopped to look at a pornographic magazine on the ground and were yelled at by a man whom they didn’t know and who threatened to call police if they didn’t obey orders, police said.