07/17/2013
For those of you who missed update number #1 you can read it here
This is even more of a reason for Barack Obama to wish this was his son, rather than a drug crazed Trayvon Martin....
Sex offender, 73, charged in kidnapping and sexual assault of 5-year-old girl
The little girl told police the man approached her as she was going to get her bicycle outside her grandma's house.
"You're pretty and I think I'm going to keep you," the man said.
Harold Leroy Herr, 73, then grabbed the 5-year-old child by her neck, forced her into his car, threatened to kill her unless she "got naked" and listened to him, and sexually assaulted her Thursday, police said.
Herr bought the child chocolate ice cream and dropped her back off in her grandma's Lancaster Township neighborhood a few hours later, police said.
The Conestoga Township man, a convicted sex offender who already served 20 years in prison for an eerily similar assault, now is facing 11 charges in the abduction and rape of the child in Lancaster Township.
The maximum penalty for the charges is more than 100 years in prison.
Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman said, "This is a nightmare case for parents and for everyone in the community.
"In our lives, we like to tell our children that monsters are not real. But they are."
Anyone who kidnaps a 5-year-old, threatens to kill her and then sexually assaults her, Stedman said, "That is a monster."
Manheim Township police arrested Herr within a day of the kidnapping and sexual assault. Prosecutors immediately began looking at Megan's Law offenders in the area and a city police officer called Manheim Township police and told them about Herr, whom he knew.
Police filed multiple charges, including kidnapping, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault, unlawful restraint and corruption of minors.
He is being held without bail because of the nature of his case and the threat prosecutors believe he poses to the community.
In an interview with police, Herr denied he was involved in the crime, according to his arrest warrant affidavit. He said he went grocery shopping Thursday, visited a former co-worker at Lancaster County Central Park and bought an ice cream sundae at the same dairy where the little girl said he took her after the assault.
Related: Pictures of massive search for missing girl
Herr served a 20-year sentence in prison for abducting and raping a 5-year-old girl he picked up off a Lancaster city street in 1989. He lured that child with the promise of buying her ice cream.
In the most recent kidnapping, the girl was taken from an area in the 100 block of Jennings Drive, as she played outside an apartment complex there where her grandmother lives.
The child went around the side of the apartment building to retrieve her bicycle and saw Herr standing there, according to the affidavit.
She said "Hi" to him, and he replied, "Hi," and asked about her bicycle.
That's when he told her she was pretty, and he was going to keep her, and forced her into his car.
Shortly afterward, the man told the child to "be naked right now or I will kill you." He also told her that if she didn't listen, he would kill her, the affidavit said.
The man then parked his car, got into the back seat with the child, took off his pants and sexually assaulted her.
The child was unable to provide an exact sequence of events but told police that, at some point, the man took her to his house and went into a garage there.
He told her he was going to take her to the pool, but the road was closed. Police later learned that roads are closed for paving in the area of the Conestoga Pool, which is not far from Herr's home on Stehman Road.
The man then took her to an ice cream shop and bought her a single scoop of chocolate ice cream.
The child asked if she could go inside the shop, but he told her she could only go inside if she was naked, so she stayed in the car.
Eventually the man took her back to her grandma's neighborhood, the child told police, where they saw police officers.
The man said he "didn't want to be put in jail," and then went down a street and told her to get out of the car. This is where the "boys" found her, she said.
Teens Temar Boggs, 15, and Chris Garcia were riding their bicycles in the area, helping to look for the child during a search involving police, emergency workers and bloodhounds.
They said they saw a man in a maroon car with a little girl, who matched the missing child's description.
They followed the man on their bicycles until he let the little girl out of the car, they said.
Boggs later identified Herr as the man he saw with the child, as well as identified his car.
The girl later identified Herr from a photo of him she saw in the Sunday News. She also identified his car and cane, from photos of them, and also indicated that Pine View Dairy was where he took her for ice cream, after police took her for a drive to try to figure out where the suspect took the child.
Manheim Township police began watching Herr's home Friday. Southern Regional police arrested him on the Megan's Law registration violation.
Herr was charged with failing to appear at a Megan's Law registration site within a 10-day period. He has been in jail, on $200,000 bail, for that offense.
Stedman and Manheim Township police Chief Neil Harkins thanked the public for their help in the case, particularly the two teens.
"These are the kind of crimes that do enrage our community," Stedman said.
"It's haunting," he said. "It's terrible."
Stranger abductions are rare, Stedman and Harkins said. But they do happen.
"We encourage and urge parents to be vigilant," Stedman said. "Incidents like this are reminders of how things can change in a moment."
In Herr's case, Stedman said he believes the crime was premeditated.
"He wasn't out there to talk to someone about philosophy," he said. "He was out there looking for a little girl ... and he took one."
In his prior case, Herr was sentenced to 5 to 20 years in prison in May 1990 after pleading guilty in Lancaster County Court to kidnapping the girl from South Prince Street and raping her in a cornfield in July 1989.
In May 1999, Herr was paroled to a community corrections center. Herr was released in July 2001.
He then violated parole terms, by possessing photographs of minor children, and was returned to prison in September 2001, according to court records.
Herr came up for parole review six more times, but the board refused to parole him. He served his maximum sentence and was released in May 2010.
Among the reasons the board cited in refusing to re-parole Herr was that he minimized the nature and circumstances of his crime, and reports and assessments concerning his behavioral and mental condition reflected an "ongoing risk to the community."
Stedman said the judicial system did all it could to keep Herr behind bars for as long as possible.
Perhaps it is time to consider longer prison sentences for sexual predators, he said, adding that no punishment seems long enough to make up for what happened to Herr's most recent victim.
source
additional editing: mine
For those of you who missed update number #1 you can read it here
This is even more of a reason for Barack Obama to wish this was his son, rather than a drug crazed Trayvon Martin....
Sex offender, 73, charged in kidnapping and sexual assault of 5-year-old girl
 |
| Harold L. Herr |
The little girl told police the man approached her as she was going to get her bicycle outside her grandma's house.
"You're pretty and I think I'm going to keep you," the man said.
Harold Leroy Herr, 73, then grabbed the 5-year-old child by her neck, forced her into his car, threatened to kill her unless she "got naked" and listened to him, and sexually assaulted her Thursday, police said.
Herr bought the child chocolate ice cream and dropped her back off in her grandma's Lancaster Township neighborhood a few hours later, police said.
The Conestoga Township man, a convicted sex offender who already served 20 years in prison for an eerily similar assault, now is facing 11 charges in the abduction and rape of the child in Lancaster Township.
The maximum penalty for the charges is more than 100 years in prison.
Lancaster County District Attorney Craig Stedman said, "This is a nightmare case for parents and for everyone in the community.
"In our lives, we like to tell our children that monsters are not real. But they are."
Anyone who kidnaps a 5-year-old, threatens to kill her and then sexually assaults her, Stedman said, "That is a monster."
Manheim Township police arrested Herr within a day of the kidnapping and sexual assault. Prosecutors immediately began looking at Megan's Law offenders in the area and a city police officer called Manheim Township police and told them about Herr, whom he knew.
Police filed multiple charges, including kidnapping, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault, unlawful restraint and corruption of minors.
He is being held without bail because of the nature of his case and the threat prosecutors believe he poses to the community.
In an interview with police, Herr denied he was involved in the crime, according to his arrest warrant affidavit. He said he went grocery shopping Thursday, visited a former co-worker at Lancaster County Central Park and bought an ice cream sundae at the same dairy where the little girl said he took her after the assault.
Related: Pictures of massive search for missing girl
Herr served a 20-year sentence in prison for abducting and raping a 5-year-old girl he picked up off a Lancaster city street in 1989. He lured that child with the promise of buying her ice cream.
In the most recent kidnapping, the girl was taken from an area in the 100 block of Jennings Drive, as she played outside an apartment complex there where her grandmother lives.
The child went around the side of the apartment building to retrieve her bicycle and saw Herr standing there, according to the affidavit.
She said "Hi" to him, and he replied, "Hi," and asked about her bicycle.
That's when he told her she was pretty, and he was going to keep her, and forced her into his car.
Shortly afterward, the man told the child to "be naked right now or I will kill you." He also told her that if she didn't listen, he would kill her, the affidavit said.
The man then parked his car, got into the back seat with the child, took off his pants and sexually assaulted her.
The child was unable to provide an exact sequence of events but told police that, at some point, the man took her to his house and went into a garage there.
He told her he was going to take her to the pool, but the road was closed. Police later learned that roads are closed for paving in the area of the Conestoga Pool, which is not far from Herr's home on Stehman Road.
The man then took her to an ice cream shop and bought her a single scoop of chocolate ice cream.
The child asked if she could go inside the shop, but he told her she could only go inside if she was naked, so she stayed in the car.
Eventually the man took her back to her grandma's neighborhood, the child told police, where they saw police officers.
The man said he "didn't want to be put in jail," and then went down a street and told her to get out of the car. This is where the "boys" found her, she said.
 |
| The son Barack Obama SHOULD wish he had: Temar Boggs |
They said they saw a man in a maroon car with a little girl, who matched the missing child's description.
They followed the man on their bicycles until he let the little girl out of the car, they said.
Boggs later identified Herr as the man he saw with the child, as well as identified his car.
The girl later identified Herr from a photo of him she saw in the Sunday News. She also identified his car and cane, from photos of them, and also indicated that Pine View Dairy was where he took her for ice cream, after police took her for a drive to try to figure out where the suspect took the child.
Manheim Township police began watching Herr's home Friday. Southern Regional police arrested him on the Megan's Law registration violation.
Herr was charged with failing to appear at a Megan's Law registration site within a 10-day period. He has been in jail, on $200,000 bail, for that offense.
Stedman and Manheim Township police Chief Neil Harkins thanked the public for their help in the case, particularly the two teens.
"These are the kind of crimes that do enrage our community," Stedman said.
"It's haunting," he said. "It's terrible."
Stranger abductions are rare, Stedman and Harkins said. But they do happen.
"We encourage and urge parents to be vigilant," Stedman said. "Incidents like this are reminders of how things can change in a moment."
In Herr's case, Stedman said he believes the crime was premeditated.
"He wasn't out there to talk to someone about philosophy," he said. "He was out there looking for a little girl ... and he took one."
In his prior case, Herr was sentenced to 5 to 20 years in prison in May 1990 after pleading guilty in Lancaster County Court to kidnapping the girl from South Prince Street and raping her in a cornfield in July 1989.
In May 1999, Herr was paroled to a community corrections center. Herr was released in July 2001.
He then violated parole terms, by possessing photographs of minor children, and was returned to prison in September 2001, according to court records.
Herr came up for parole review six more times, but the board refused to parole him. He served his maximum sentence and was released in May 2010.
Among the reasons the board cited in refusing to re-parole Herr was that he minimized the nature and circumstances of his crime, and reports and assessments concerning his behavioral and mental condition reflected an "ongoing risk to the community."
Stedman said the judicial system did all it could to keep Herr behind bars for as long as possible.
Perhaps it is time to consider longer prison sentences for sexual predators, he said, adding that no punishment seems long enough to make up for what happened to Herr's most recent victim.
source
additional editing: mine
No comments:
Post a Comment