Father angry after attack on girl in their home

DOUGLAS COUNTY - The Sheriff's Office is looking for a burglar who apparently entered the second-story window of a Stonegate home and fondled an 8-year-old girl as she slept.

The girl's father said he was showering around 5 a.m. Friday before leaving for work, when his daughter burst into the bathroom, panicked and scared, saying a strange man had just fled her room.

The father said he jumped from the shower, yelled for his wife to call police and headed into his daughter's bedroom, expecting to confront the man, but instead found her window screen cast onto the roof at the foot of her window. Investigators later found the screen had been sliced, he said.

The girl said she was awakened by an unknown male who was touching her inappropriately, the Sheriff's Office said in a statement. She described him as a while male with brown hair and about 140 to 180 pounds.

"We do believe that an unknown person entered the house through an open window and fondled this girl," said Cocha Heyden, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Office.

"He told her that if she ever said anything, he would come back to kill our whole family," the father said of the man.

Deputies canvassed the area for the suspect but had no luck.

Nothing was missing from the home, and the suspect left nothing noticeable behind, the father said. It's still unclear how the suspect climbed the roof to enter the room.

The family had left the windows open because the house - a foreclosure they bought in November after moving here from Texas - doesn't have air conditioning. Separate contractors have worked on the home during the last few months, installing a new roof and, just weeks ago, painting the exterior. The father said he knew of no one who had threatened or held a grudge against the family.

"This is coming as a complete surprise," he said outside his home. "One moment I feel fine, the next I'm not. It's your little girl, your baby."

Authorities late in the morning continued scouring the property and home in unincorporated Douglas County, where children zipped along the empty street on scooters while mothers pushed infants in strollers.

An investigator took a window screen from the scene and placed it in the back of her vehicle. A sheriff's deputy at the scene declined to comment, saying the investigation was ongoing.

Word of the break-in and alleged sexual assault spread quickly among neighbors, many of whom have children.

One of the neighbors, who has lived in the neighborhood for 17 years but declined to give her name amid concern for her family's safety, said she often leaves her windows open at night. Her daughter sometimes babysits for the family, who also have a 6-year-old son.

She said the reports made her wary of keeping her windows open at night, even though she said crime in the neighborhood was low, typically consisting of juvenile crimes, rowdy teenage partying, recreational drug use and occasional thefts.

Asked how he was feeling about the ordeal, the father said he was enraged and saddened.

"It's unbelievable," he said, his voice weary. "Police said this just doesn't happen here."

On Sunday, a second report was received from the same subdivision. A caller in the 15,000 block of Crest Rock Drive said his second story window screen had been pried back but no one entered the home. Deputies have not said if the cases are related.

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