Victim’s Friend Went Online to Trap Suspect

A 17-year-old girl recounted Thursday how she pretended to flirt with a UC Irvine student, chatting with him on the Internet about punk rock and agreeing to meet at a shopping mall, where police arrested him on suspicion of raping her friend.

Elizabeth, a high school senior from Huntington Beach, said she contacted the suspect online Sunday, three days after the man allegedly enticed her 15-year-old friend via the Internet into a date that authorities say ended in a brutal attack.

Never mentioning her friend, Elizabeth told the man in an instant message that she had seen his name in a teenage chat room and asked how he was doing, she recalled.

The stranger, she said, almost immediately suggested a meeting, setting up the trap.

Despite feeling terrified, Elizabeth said, she gave the suspect her phone number and they spoke for half an hour. She asked what clothes he wore, what car he drove, trying not to arouse suspicion as she collected details to help police identify him.

“I was so scared, so scared . . . but I was really stuck on trying to get him,” Elizabeth said. “It took a bit of acting to get him. I was all giggly, flirting with him. Teenagery.”

Police have not released her identity because she is a juvenile witness.

Elizabeth’s role in the case ended when she set up the meeting with the suspect at the Block of Orange. From there, police took over, showing up at the mall and arresting UC Irvine sophomore Brian Dance as he allegedly waited for Elizabeth to appear.

Prosecutors this week charged Dance, 20, with the Dec. 20 attack. They allege that he drove Elizabeth’s friend to a deserted UC Irvine parking lot, raped her, beat her with a belt and slashed her face with a knife.

Dance was charged Wednesday with seven felony counts, including robbery, sexual assault and making threats. A judge denied his request for bail and he remains at the Orange County Jail. He is scheduled to enter a plea next month.

Police said Elizabeth’s efforts were central to making the arrest.

“She did an outstanding job,” said Irvine police investigator Larry Montgomery. “She played it the right way. To get him to meet her, she obviously did a perfect job.”

Elizabeth said that when she learned Friday morning about the attack, she wasted no time in going to see her friend.

There the victim revealed her injuries. She had bruises and red welts. A swastika was scratched into her cheek. More knife cuts streaked her forehead. Her mouth was swollen, revealing a missing front tooth.

“When I saw her, I broke down and started crying,” Elizabeth said. “I had never seen anything as horrendous in my life.”

Her friend told her she had met a boy on the Internet who said he wanted to go on a date.

Elizabeth, who has studied acting and dreams of becoming a prosecutor, said she felt an overpowering urge to help her friend. She combined her legal ambitions with her acting talent to do that.

Detectives spent two days fruitlessly searching for the suspect online before asking the victim to join the hunt. If the attacker contacted her on the Internet, the detectives told her, she should set up another meeting and call police.

Elizabeth decided to join the hunt, she said. She got the suspect’s Internet moniker “punkrawkjock2001” from her friend. Then, she said, she managed to find the suspect after recognizing the nickname from a chat room she had previously visited.

“What kind of music are you into?” she recalled asking him.

The stranger, using the name Chris, told her he liked punk and listed his favorite bands. She wrote back, listing albums she had recently bought.

“Let’s hang out,” he wrote back, repeating the message with smiley faces, she said.

She phoned her friend, who called police. Investigators gave Elizabeth instructions to set up a meeting late that evening.

“Chris” wrote that he was going to ask a friend to call Elizabeth, and soon her phone was ringing. On the line was a man who said his name was Brian. The man, Elizabeth said, was adamant that he had to meet her at 4 p.m., as long as she “wasn’t some sort of freak.” (It’s not clear whether he was presenting himself as the Internet stranger or as his friend).

“I just kind of laughed,” she said. “How ironic that he would say that to me! . . . I was just disgusted.”

The stranger told her he would be wearing a black shirt and blue jeans and driving a white Honda Civic. An hour or so later, detectives arrived at the mall with the 15-year-old victim hiding in an unmarked car. There, she identified a man sitting in a white Honda Civic as her attacker. Officers rushed in.

About 5 p.m., as Elizabeth waited anxiously for the results of the sting, her phone rang.

“We got him!” the victim screamed over the phone.

“I screamed too,” Elizabeth said. “I was so happy.”