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Teen tells deputies man tried to grab her
Deputies search for a man who was driving a newer model silver car like one described in a similar incident Wednesday.
By ALEX LEARY
Published February 18, 2005
NEW PORT RICHEY - The Pasco County Sheriff's Office is looking for a man who tried to grab a 16-year-old girl after she got off a bus Wednesday afternoon.
The girl told deputies she left a county transit bus at State Road 54 and U.S. 19 and was walking on Highland Loop about 3 p.m. when a man in a newer model, silver, four-door car came behind her and called out.
"She made eye contact with him and made it clear she was not interested in talking to him and continued walking," a Sheriff's Office report said. But the girl said the stranger pulled his car close to her and called out again.
Then, the report said, he reached out and took hold of her right forearm. The girl pulled away and the driver left.
A ninth-grader at Gulf High School told a deputy he saw the car driving alongside the girl but from his vantage point could not see the man reach for the girl.
Wednesday's incident resembles a report from earlier this week in Trinity's Foxwood subdivision, the Sheriff's Office said.
A 13-year-old girl said a man in a silver vehicle, perhaps a Nissan Altima, drove up while she was walking her dog Sunday and asked her to walk over, saying, "I just came from your parents and they sent me here."
The girl ran home. "Come back," the man yelled at her, according to the report. "I'll be back."
"They appear to be similar in nature," sheriff's spokesman Doug Tobin said Thursday. But he added the cases had not been linked other than "some circumstances seem to be similar."
The girl in Sunday's incident described the driver as a Hispanic male, 30 to 40 years old, with short, straight black hair and wearing sunglasses, a tan-and-green windbreaker and blue jeans.
The suspect in Wednesday's incident was described as about 25 years old with a tan/dark complexion, green eyes and short, curly black hair.
The Pasco Sheriff's Office asks anyone with information about either case to call 1-800-706-2488.
[Last modified February 18, 2005, 00:14:17]
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