Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Frightening Story Out of West Virginia
Aired July 14, 2003 - 07:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And now to a frightening story out of West Virginia. Police there are looking for a man that they suspect of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl in the aisles of a popular department store while it was open.
Mary Nelson is at our affiliate, WSAZ, and has this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARY NELSON, WSAZ CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tapes showing this man, police say he sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl at this Target in South Charleston. Standing between two aisles of CDs, he's watching the girl as she's looking at DVDs. Surveillance shows he scouted the girl and her mom for about a half hour. Once the girl and her mom split, he posed as a security officer in toys, saying he suspected her of stealing merchandise and said she needed to come with him.
That's when he pulled a knife on her and said he'd hurt her if she didn't cooperate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people get the misconception that small town America, you know, it's not going to happen here. Unfortunately, it does.
NELSON: Police say after he threatened the girl, this man led her through the store and sexually assaulted her in the lawn and garden department. But when customer traffic picked up, he led the girl to men's wear and assaulted her again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the way he did this, it's pretty obvious that he's probably done it before or at least tried it before. You know, this is somebody's brother, neighbor, cousin. He's related to somebody. We want to find him before he does it again, before he hurts someone.
NELSON: Police are still looking for this man. He's in his late '20s, early '30s, between 5'5" and 6' tall, about 200 pounds with brown hair wearing a green colored hat that says "Just Golf."
Julie Negie (ph) has two daughters and says things like this aren't supposed to happen here.
JULIE NEGIE: You don't want to put the fear in them, you know, that they can't do anything because, you know, you want them, you know, they need to have a little bit of freedom. And, but it's sad now that something like that has happened in this size of a town. It's really, you know, it's scary.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: And that was Mary Nelson reporting from our affiliate WSAZ.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired July 14, 2003 - 07:32 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: And now to a frightening story out of West Virginia. Police there are looking for a man that they suspect of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl in the aisles of a popular department store while it was open.
Mary Nelson is at our affiliate, WSAZ, and has this report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARY NELSON, WSAZ CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tapes showing this man, police say he sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl at this Target in South Charleston. Standing between two aisles of CDs, he's watching the girl as she's looking at DVDs. Surveillance shows he scouted the girl and her mom for about a half hour. Once the girl and her mom split, he posed as a security officer in toys, saying he suspected her of stealing merchandise and said she needed to come with him.
That's when he pulled a knife on her and said he'd hurt her if she didn't cooperate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people get the misconception that small town America, you know, it's not going to happen here. Unfortunately, it does.
NELSON: Police say after he threatened the girl, this man led her through the store and sexually assaulted her in the lawn and garden department. But when customer traffic picked up, he led the girl to men's wear and assaulted her again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From the way he did this, it's pretty obvious that he's probably done it before or at least tried it before. You know, this is somebody's brother, neighbor, cousin. He's related to somebody. We want to find him before he does it again, before he hurts someone.
NELSON: Police are still looking for this man. He's in his late '20s, early '30s, between 5'5" and 6' tall, about 200 pounds with brown hair wearing a green colored hat that says "Just Golf."
Julie Negie (ph) has two daughters and says things like this aren't supposed to happen here.
JULIE NEGIE: You don't want to put the fear in them, you know, that they can't do anything because, you know, you want them, you know, they need to have a little bit of freedom. And, but it's sad now that something like that has happened in this size of a town. It's really, you know, it's scary.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: And that was Mary Nelson reporting from our affiliate WSAZ.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
