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Detectives soon find a suspect but still are not sure who he is.
By RYAN DAVIS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 7, 2002
ODESSA -- A 16-year-old girl who agreed to give a stranded motorist a ride Tuesday night was kidnapped, raped and robbed at gunpoint inside her car, Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies said.
On Wednesday morning while deputies were searching the Pasco County neighborhood where the girl was set free, they bumped into a suspect.
The man, who said he is Dwayne Kijuan Wilson, 43, was arrested and faces charges of armed robbery, armed kidnapping, sexual battery and resisting arrest without violence, deputies said.
Authorities were still trying Wednesday night to confirm his identity and determine if he's the same rapist -- the first and last names match -- who was released three months ago from an Indiana prison.
Based on the girl's tips and their investigation, deputies recounted a harrowing hour Tuesday night in northwest Hillsborough and central Pasco counties. Sheriff's spokesman Lt. Rod Reder gave the following account:
About 10:30 p.m. Wilson came to a Texaco station/Taco Bell at 18902 Gunn Highway, at the corner of Tarpon Springs Road. He told a 16-year-old girl just getting off work there that his car had broken down "just up the road."
He said he only wanted a ride. She agreed.
"As soon as they drove away, he pulled out a gun," Reder said.
He threatened her with the handgun and had her drive around until they reached a driveway lined by orange groves at Crescent Road and Blake Road, just west of the gas station.
There, inside her car, he raped the girl and stole her jewelry.
Deputies recovered evidence from the scene on Wednesday. Reder would not say what car the girl drove or what the evidence was.
The man then rode with the girl north into Pasco County. On a gravel road just south of State Road 54, he grabbed the speakers and stereo equipment from the car. Then he took off running.
She drove home to Odessa in Hillsborough County and called 911 before midnight. She provided a detailed description of her attacker, including his facial hair and a scar on his left hand.
She also told deputies where she was set free. It's a small, isolated neighborhood near Lake Geneva in south central Pasco County.
Veteran Hillsborough detective Cpl. Mike Willette jumped on that information.
"It just hit him that if the guy did not have a car set up to flee, he's got to live in the area," Reder said.
He and Detective Christi Esquinaldo arrived in the neighborhood shortly before 9 a.m. They hoped neighbors might identify someone who matched the girl's description of her attacker.
Before 10 a.m. they stopped at 14635 Geneva Drive, a pinkish brown stucco duplex. Wilson walked out. He met the girl's description, down to the scar on his left hand.
"He started acting hinkey," Reder said.
Esquinaldo and Willette went to frisk him and a scuffle ensued. He rolled free from Esquinaldo and ran 200 yards.
When Willette grabbed Wilson, he searched him and found some of the girl's belongings. Reder would not say what.
He said Wilson recently moved into the duplex.
Neighbor Stephanie Permenter said Wilson lived there when she moved in on Jan. 15. She doesn't know any neighbors except him, she said. She knows of Wilson, she said, because he's constantly wandering the streets drunk.
"It's very quiet except for him," she said.
"I have a 16-year-old daughter," she added. "It scares me to death."
Reder said if Wilson is who he says he is, he may have served time in Indiana for murder. Indiana Department of Corrections officials have no one by the name Dwayne Kijuan Wilson in their files.
They have a Dwayne E. Wilson, with the same birth date. That man served time from 1985 to 1995 for armed robbery in Gary, Ind., and from 1997 to Dec. 18, 2001, for rape, said Judy Parks, of the Indiana department.
Indiana's Wilson is 6 feet and 174 pounds, she said. The Wilson arrested Wednesday and booked into Pasco County jail in Land O'Lakes is 6-feet-1 and 185 pounds. He was born in Gary, Ind.
He was transferred Wednesday afternoon to Orient Road Jail in Hillsborough County. Officials there were seeking to compare his fingerprints to those on file in Indiana.
"We'll see if it's the same guy," Reder said.
-- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Ryan Davis is the police reporter in Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6245, or toll-free at 800-333-7505, ext. 6245. His e-mail address is rdavis@sptimes.com.