Molester May Have Link to Earlier Crime

GARDEN GROVE — Police asked the public for help Tuesday in the search for a child molester who attacked a boy at a local store in 1992 and is now believed to be the man caught on video moments before molesting a child at a McDonald’s restaurant in North Hills.

The possible connection to the March 30 molestation at the Los Angeles fast-food restaurant prompted Garden Grove detectives to reopen their own investigation into the October 8, 1992, molestation in a bathroom at the Kmart at 10870 Katella Ave., police said Tuesday.

In both cases, the attacker grabbed a 7-year-old boy in the bathroom of a busy public place and molested him in a stall before calmly and quickly escaping, according to Garden Grove Police Det. Mark S. Hutchinson.

“We feel very strongly that this could be the same suspect,” Hutchinson said.

In both cases, the attacker seemed undeterred by customers and the presence of video surveillance cameras, which captured his image. In the McDonald’s incident, a video image shows him abruptly turning away from the camera in an apparent attempt to guard his face.

In each case, the molester was described as a white man, with receding light brown hair and wearing wire-rim prescription glasses. The suspect also was described as having a black eyeglass case attached to his belt.

Two composite sketches of the 1992 molester show a man with a slightly receding hairline, while the more recent sketch prepared by Los Angeles police shows a nearly bald man. Witnesses who saw the man in the 1992 incident said he was between 30 and 45, while witnesses in the March case said they believed the molester was between 25 and 35.

The mother of the Orange County boy attacked in 1992 was contacted by Hutchinson and expressed relief that investigators have renewed hopes of finding her son’s attacker. Hutchinson said detectives had their “hands pretty much tied” by a lack of clues in that case.

In 1992, the molester waited in a bathroom at the rear of the Kmart and exposed himself to the victim before molesting him, police said. The boy’s mother, who grew worried when her son took so long, knocked on the door and called her son’s name, forcing the molester to abandon his victim and flee, brushing past the mother, police said.