Search for molester in red truck intensifies throughout Tampa

By KATHRYN WEXLER

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 17, 1999

TAMPA -- Officer Steve Smith stared through the rain-splattered windshield of his police cruiser Wednesday afternoon and didn't like what he saw.

The driver of an oncoming GMC Sonoma pickup truck -- red with tinted windows -- was making a quick left from Lois Avenue onto Alva Street.

"It makes me wonder if he's avoiding me," said Smith, 37, who normally investigates crack houses.

But on this day, Smith, like the rest of the Tampa police force, is chasing a much more elusive public enemy, one who drives a red pickup truck.

Smith gunned the accelerator, hitting 50 mph, to see if he had come across the most hunted man in Hillsborough.

As the pickup turned in front of him, a logo painted on its passenger door became visible.

Like the two or three dozen red pickup trucks before this one, Smith watched as it passed and went on its way.

"It wasn't close enough to what we're looking for," he said.

Law enforcement officers are combing the streets for a man who they say has a compulsion to molest young girls, is inclined to wear women's clothes and may have struck 22 times since October.

At first glance, the suspect's red or maroon Chevy S-10 or Ford Ranger appears to be everywhere.

And yet, upon closer inspection, it is nowhere, as officers eliminate truck after truck that don't have certain reported features or a man fitting the suspect's description behind the wheel.

"There are zillions of them out there, but we are not going to stop them arbitrarily," Smith said.

At the Tampa police roll call Wednesday, officers were handed photocopies of rough sketches of the man's face, distilled from the memories of witnesses.

Hillsborough deputies also are studying sketches. Tampa Fire Rescue Chief Pete Botto requested to have sketches posted in each of the city's 21 fire stations.

"If you see anybody suspicious in your travels, report him right now," Botto instructed firefighters. "We wouldn't encourage our guys to tackle anybody, but it wouldn't be the first time."

The public has responded with equal fervor. As of late Wednesday, about 300 calls had been placed to a police hot line.

Some callers gave names, addresses and license tag numbers of men they thought were suspicious. Other calls were too vague, officials said.

Investigators are waiting for a break, Sgt. Bill Rousseau said.

"Nothing looks all that promising," said Rousseau, who oversees the task force created this week in response to the suspect's latest victim, an 8-year-old girl grabbed from an unlocked car in a parking lot on N MacDill Avenue and sexually molested before being dropped off a few miles away.

Police also found themselves debunking false rumors Wednesday.

Some Tampa residents said they'd heard the suspect had twice tried to snatch a child in Seminole Heights, something Tampa police spokesman Steve Cole said was untrue.

Suspicion throughout the county is growing, and that's good, officers said.

"The public is tuned in, we hope, and that's how this will be solved," Tampa Maj. K.C. Newcomb said.

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