Couple Shocked by Son’s Arrest

Three days after she was raped, a 15-year-old girl was being asked by her alleged attacker in an Internet chat room if she was recovering, police said Monday.

At the same time, he was communicating online with another teen he hoped to meet, police said.

What the man didn’t realize, though, was that the two girls were close friends who moments earlier had set up a trap for him online.

The victim’s friend arranged to meet the man an hour later at a mall in Orange. It was there, on Sunday, that detectives took UC Irvine student Brian Dance into custody on suspicion of carrying out last week’s sexual assault.

Police allege Dance, 20, lured the teen via the Internet into meeting him Thursday, then drove to a deserted university parking lot where he raped and tortured her, beating her with a belt and cutting her on the face with a knife.

On Monday, detectives released more details about the extraordinary sting the pair of teens hatched to catch the suspect.

“It was very smart,” Irvine Police Sgt. Tom Little said of the girls’ plan. “It all worked out well in the end, and it saved anyone else from being attacked by this guy.”

But the suspect’s family said they were stunned police would accuse Dance of committing such a crime. Dance, a university sophomore who lives with his parents in Newport Beach, had no criminal record and is a model college student. He has earned a 3.37 grade-point average and works as a parking lot attendant.

“This is too unbelievable even to comprehend,” said his father, Larry Dance. “He’s never had any problems with anybody. He’s never been in a fight. He doesn’t have a temper, doesn’t get upset with anybody.”

His son, Dance said, kept mostly to himself, spending his free time in his bedroom studying, watching television and working on his computer.

“He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t smoke. He doesn’t swear,” Dance said. “He’s basically a homebody.”

In fact, because the student never stayed out late, his parents said they never asked where he was going when he left their apartment Thursday afternoon. The young man returned in time to eat dinner and watch professional wrestling on television at 8 p.m., his father said.

Larry Dance said police arrived at the door late Sunday. That night, he talked to his son in jail by phone.

“I told him I loved him. Told him we support him. Told him that we wouldn’t abandon him,” the father said. “I said, ‘You’re going to have to stay there and wait until the truth comes out.’ ”

Dance remained in Orange County Jail on Monday on suicide watch, held in lieu of $250,000 bail. Police said he is likely to be charged with rape, torture and robbery--charges that carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Investigators said they seized Dance’s computer to see if he tried to meet anyone else he talked to online.

The events leading up to the assault began about 10 days ago, when the unidentified victim, from Orange, struck up a conversation with a man in one of Yahoo’s teenage chat rooms, police said.

She pretended she was 16 and the man said he was 17. They communicated twice online before Thursday, when they arranged online to meet at the Block at Orange for a date.

The man drove the girl from the mall to UC Irvine, stopping in a deserted parking lot, police said. There, he attacked her in the back seat, police said.

The teen’s eyes were duct-taped shut and her hands tied. She was beaten with a belt, and the assailant cut her on the face several times with a knife, telling her that he was going to carve a swastika, police said.

The attack lasted two hours, the girl later told police. Then, the man apologized for what he had done. He ordered the girl out of the car and sped off. The teen staggered to a nearby street and flagged down a passing motorist, who called police.

Detectives hoped to conduct their own sting but on Friday and Saturday failed to contact the suspect online. On Sunday, investigators told the girl and her aunt, with whom she lives, that the girl might have more luck finding the assailant in the same chat room.

An hour later, the girl’s aunt called police. Her niece and a friend had made contact with the suspect online and he was asking the victim about her recovery.

“He asked if she was OK. He asked if she was hurt,” said Sgt. Little. “The attacker had no idea where she lived so we didn’t feel that [the girls] were in jeopardy.”

The man sent the victim’s friend a photograph he claimed was of himself, police said, though it was not a picture of Dance. Meanwhile, Investigator Larry Montgomery instructed the girls to arrange a meeting with the suspect at the Block. The friend did not go to the scene. But the victim, sitting in an unmarked police car, identified Dance as he sat in his car--different from the Honda Accord that she said had been used in the attack--and police arrested him.

“He showed up with the duct tape and the knife” in the car, Little said. “He wanted to do the same thing again.”

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Times staff writer Tina Borgatta contributed to this report.