Photos’ Release Leads Police to Suspect in Molestation : Crime: Two hours after broadcast of young victim’s picture, tips guide authorities to Rowland Heights man. Girl is believed to be safe.

Just two hours after TV stations broadcast photos of an unknown child molestation victim Friday afternoon, a flurry of phone tips guided police to a suspect in Rowland Heights. The victim is believed to be safe.

The unusual case began Thursday when Whittier police received an envelope of snapshots that showed a girl, apparently between the ages of 4 and 6, being sexually molested by a man. The photos were found by a resident of a Whittier motel who was going through the motel’s trash bin looking for cigarette coupons.

Police sought permission to release a photo of the girl to help the investigation. But at first a Los Angeles County Juvenile Court judge refused, out of concern for the child’s privacy.

After police exhausted all available leads, Judge Marcus O. Tucker decided Friday to allow release of a photograph of the girl, cropped to reveal only her face. Police also released cropped photos of the room where the molestation took place, in hopes that distinctive items there, including a collection of alligator-themed pictures and knickknacks, might help in identifying the location.

None of the dozen photos found showed the face of the perpetrator.

Broadcast of the photos on TV news at 4 p.m. brought a deluge of calls, police said. Within 20 minutes they received the first of three phone calls identifying the girl and her home, said Whittier Police Lt. Steve Milakovich.

The suspect, described as a man who rents a room to the girl and her mother, was detained about 6 p.m.

The suspect, Paul Loe, 46, had been arrested earlier in December and charged with sex crimes against a child, but was released Dec. 28 pending trial, a sheriff’s spokesman said. If the photos are found to depict a different crime, the spokesman said, Loe will be rearrested.

Milakovich said broadcast of the photograph was crucial to finding the suspect. “It was extremely important to reveal the evidence,” he said. “The community responded quite well.”

Sheriff’s deputies took over the investigation Friday night because the crime allegedly occurred in unincorporated Rowland Heights, in southeastern Los Angeles County.

By late Friday evening, police had not talked to the girl, but said she apparently was safe and in the custody of her mother, although they were not at home.

Last October, the release of a photograph in a similar case led to the arrest of two suspects. Photographs found on a street in Koreatown showed a 3-year-old-girl apparently being molested by a man and a woman. Within days of the release of photos showing the faces of the two suspects, they were apprehended. They are now awaiting trial in San Bernardino County.