Sketches of Teen Couples’ Attackers Released

Orange County sheriff’s officials released a sketch Thursday of two members of a group they believe gang-raped a pair of teenage girls and savagely beat their boyfriends.

But investigators said they are still far from identifying any of the five attackers. Detectives appealed for help from anyone who might have seen the men or their small white car, possibly a foreign model, near Black Star Canyon east of Orange early Tuesday.

Authorities said that about 1 a.m. Tuesday the men drove into the rugged hills, where they confronted and robbed the teenagers, who were on a double date. The assailants kicked the boys in the head and beat them with a rock before repeatedly sexually assaulting the girls, ages 13 and 15.

One of the injured boys, a 17-year-old, suffered a fractured skull and remained in very serious condition Thursday, officials said.

Detectives contacted gang investigators as far as Riverside and San Diego counties, hoping that police might have some leads.

The victims described the five men as in their late teens or early 20s, three with shaved heads. One had a distinctively flattened, possibly broken, nose.

Authorities acknowledged that the sketches are somewhat generic, adding that all they have to go on is the partial descriptions provided by the victims.

“The leads are slim,” said Orange County sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino. “There is physical evidence that’s being processed that might help . . . but we’re encouraging anyone with information to contact us.”

Officials said the men sexually assaulted the girls in the canyon and drove them to a nearby quarry, where they raped them again. The girls were then driven to an isolated area and dumped.

The men threatened to return and kill the girls if they went to police, Amormino said.

Naked, the girls crawled through the brush, clothing themselves with discarded rags and cardboard that they found in the scrub until they reached a road. They flagged down a passing ambulance, whose driver called police.

Left behind in the canyon, the boys dragged themselves to a main road and flagged down motorists until one stopped and called authorities.

The driver immediately realized that at least one of the boys was seriously injured, according to a transcript of the 911 call released Thursday.