TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Video, Description Helped Nab Park Rape Suspect

ADVERTISEMENT

By HALLE STOCKTON

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: August 1, 2008

  Emmitt Crawford

MANATEE COUNTY - Five hours after a 16-year-old girl was raped in Pride Park by an unknown teenager Wednesday morning, a detective asked a boy riding his bike nearby if he had been in the park earlier.

The boy said no.

Thursday afternoon, the same 16-year-old boy, Emmitt D. Crawford, was arrested on charges that he dragged the girl into the men's restroom at the park and raped her.

Crawford was arrested on charges of sexual battery and false imprisonment at about 12:50 p.m. at his home in the 5800 block of 11th Street East, the Manatee County Sheriff's Office said.

After the arrest, Crawford reportedly admitted sexually assaulting the girl and told investigators he does not know her.

The description given by the girl and video surveillance at a school adjacent to the park were key in locating Crawford, sheriff's Detective Jeffrey Bliss said.

The girl described the rapist as a black man of average height and weight with what she believed was a scar on the left side of his forehead. She told authorities he rode a green bike away from the park, on the northwest corner of 63rd Avenue East and Ninth Street.

On Wednesday afternoon, Bliss said he saw a boy riding his bike within a mile of the park who fit that description. He asked to talk to him. The boy, Crawford, consented and told the detective he had not been to the park that morning.

Crawford said he was at home. He was supposed to take his sister to Blanche H. Daughtrey Elementary, next to the park, that morning, but did not, he said.

Authorities said Wednesday afternoon that the attacker may have been in the area to drop off a child at the school - just as the victim was there to drop off her niece.

However, the young girl authorities thought the assailant may have escorted to the school could not be found.

On Thursday morning, Bliss said, he and another detective obtained video surveillance from Wednesday morning at Daughtrey Elementary, 515 63rd Ave. E., to see who had dropped off children before the 9:15 a.m. sexual assault.

Crawford was spotted on the video. The girl he took to school, Crawford's younger sister, said Thursday that her brother did take her to school Wednesday morning.

Crawford was seen in the video lifting his sister over the fence from the park to the school premises, according to a sheriff's report. The victim did similarly with her niece minutes before she was assaulted.

After the sexual assault, the girl walked to her nearby home and then was taken to Manatee Memorial Hospital, where physicians completed a rape kit.

Bliss said Crawford, a Bayshore High School football player, accidentally created a bald spot on the left side of his scalp when he tried to cut his hair in the past, according to his football coach. The victim may have mistaken that spot for a scar, the detective said.

Additionally, Crawford "cut his hair last night to get rid of the bald spot that he had, so he'd be completely bald," Bliss said.

Crawford will be held in juvenile detention as prosecutors decide whether to file an adult-level rape charge against him.

In cases involving minors, assistant state attorneys review allegations to determine whether to prosecute a sex crime charge in juvenile court or in adult court, where a defendant faces the possible sanction of state prison. That review includes, among other factors, the age of the victim, the relationship between the victim and the defendant and whether the sex act was forced.

Defendants who are at least 14 and who are convicted of certain sex crimes in juvenile court, including attempted rape, are required to register as a sexual offender or predator with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT