Deputies Hunt for Attacker of Girl, 7

Sheriff’s deputies scoured a Palmdale neighborhood Wednesday for a suspect in the vicious sexual assault of a 7-year-old girl, who was attacked while running after her puppy.

“This person threatened to kill her if she told,” the girl’s distraught mother said. “She’s very, very scared.”

The second-grader was assaulted between 6 and 8 p.m. Tuesday about a block from her home, in a yard littered with the carcasses of three old cars, a springless mattress and an abandoned couch, sheriff’s deputies said.

“It was a very, very heinous crime,” said Sgt. Mike Becker, of the family crimes bureau. “The sexual encounter was extremely forceful.”

The girl ran home after the attack and was taken to Antelope Valley Hospital, where she was treated for lacerations and remained under sedation Wednesday, her mother said.

“She was hysterical,” the mother added. To comfort the child, the mother said she promised: “I would make sure no one would ever hurt her again, and I will. No one will ever do anything like this to any of my children ever again.”

Later Tuesday, deputies detained and questioned a 14-year-old Palmdale boy who was visiting his mother in a nearby house, Becker said.

A blood sample was taken from the boy, but deputies released him to his father, who is separated from the boy’s mother, the sergeant said.

“Right now we’re not discarding him as a possible suspect,” Becker added, but other suspects were also being sought. Four deputies were in the neighborhood Wednesday afternoon, knocking on doors and interviewing residents.

The mother said her daughter was assaulted while taking her puppy, Rogue, to a friend’s house. The puppy slipped away and ran under a neighbor’s fence near Avenue R-4 and Palm Vista Avenue, where the attacker was waiting in the cluttered yard, the mother said.

Becker said the details of the sexual attack were unclear because the child went into shock before deputies could speak to her.

The mother said the girl is usually bubbly and loves to draw and do other “basic 7-year-old things.”

She speculated that the attacker was someone familiar with the neighborhood.

About 300 child molestations are reported in the Antelope Valley a year, Becker said, adding that they rarely involve strangers.