Suspect admits rape, police say

They say the 34-year-old man also admits he was behind four of the 22 incidents linked to the ""cross-dressing rapist.''

By AMY HERDY

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 20, 1999

TAMPA -- For months, authorities in Hillsborough have been searching for a man who dresses in woman's clothes and stalks women and children. Thursday, they got a tip. Barely 24 hours later, they had their man.

Police charged 34-year-old Brian Christopher Graham, who is married and has a 17-year-old stepdaughter, with the kidnapping and rape of an 8-year-old Tampa girl June 12.

Brian Graham is married and has a stepdaughter, 17.

Detectives said Graham admitted he was the kidnapper soon after being arrested and also told them he was responsible for four incidents in Temple Terrace where he either exposed himself to or followed children.

The swift end to one of the most intensive manhunts in recent Tampa history came after a woman stepped forward with information she had kept to herself for nearly three weeks.

On May 29, the day after a man wearing nothing but a bra exposed himself to two 7-year-old girls in Temple Terrace, the woman -- one of the girls' neighbors -- noticed something suspicious. A man driving a red truck repeatedly circled the streets inside the Heritage Apartment complex. The woman memorized the vehicle's license tag, but did not call police right away.

"It didn't click," the woman, who has not been identified, told Temple Terrace police Capt. Tracy Mishler.

On Thursday, the woman learned more about the description of the truck being driven by the man known as the "cross-dressing rapist." She decided to give the partial tag number to police.

Friday evening, Temple Terrace police and Hillsborough sheriff's deputies converged on Graham's Tampa home at 4208 Richmere Ave.

Other charges could be filed, police said, including that in a kidnapping and rape in Hillsborough County last fall.

"We're going to re-interview witnesses and try to connect him to other crimes," said Tampa police Sgt. Bill Rousseau.

The family of the 8-year-old girl, police said, was "elated" at news of the arrest. "It gave them a sense of relief," said Tampa Detective John Yaratch.

The attacks on young women and children started last October. Authorities at first thought the same man may have been responsible for as many as 22 incidents. In 15 of the cases, the man wore women's clothing. In 10 of them, he grabbed or attacked his victims. Now with Graham in custody, officials are still investigating whether he is linked to all of the incidents.

The search escalated after last weekend's kidnapping and rape of the 8-year-old, which alarmed police by its boldness. The man snatched the child from her mother's car, parked at the Nature's Harvest store on N MacDill Avenue.

The man then drove the girl to a motel near Interstate 75 and State Road 60, dressed her in a skirt, placed a black bra over her face and sexually assaulted her.

After being given the partial tag by the female tipster Thursday, Temple Terrace Detective Darrin Berberat took the information to Chris Billingsley, head of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office crime analysis unit. Billingsley was able to match the partial tag to a red 1997 Toyota truck -- tag LB37M -- owned by Graham.

When Berberat looked at Graham's driver's license photo, he realized Graham resembled a composite sketch provided by Tampa police after the June 12 attack.

Photos of several men were shown to the two 7-year-old girls who lived in the Heritage Apartments, and one of them picked out Graham's photo, Mishler said.

Neighbors said Graham was in his front yard chatting to a friend when police took him into custody shortly after 8 p.m. Friday.

Tampa police Detectives Yaratch and J.D. Tindall questioned Graham for about an hour and a half. In the beginning, they said, he seemed unruffled.

"He was very confident, to a degree arrogant," Yaratch said, "until he realized we had enough information to do what we had to do whether he cooperated or not."

After admitting the crimes, Rousseau said, Graham's only regret appeared to be that he had been caught.

Graham's truck was towed to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to be examined for evidence.

Records show Graham was born in Michigan and moved to Tampa more than 10 years ago. Police said he repairs medical equipment for a small bay area company. In April 1996, Graham married Felicia Dawn Priest, who had a daughter from a previous marriage.

Graham's wife "had her suspicions," Rousseau said, but he would not elaborate. She declined to talk to reporters Saturday.

Police said Graham did not appear to have a criminal history. State records show a string of more than two dozen traffic citations, dating from 1988 to 1996.

Residents in the tidy, middle-class neighborhood described Graham as friendly and cheerful, although some had been uneasy about his behavior with children at times.

"He would play with the neighbor's 7-year-old daughter -- he was rough with her," said Michelle Kelly, who lives across the street from the Grahams' one-story, ranch-style home. "He would pick her up, hard, and be squeezing her, and patting her on the bottom."

Graham used to chase her 13-year-old son in horseplay, Kelly said, until last year when she put an end to it.

Other neighborhood children would hang around Graham's home, Kelly said, including the 7-year-old girl, whose father was good friends with Graham and would sometimes let his daughter spend the night at Graham's home.

"Now, they're just devastated," she said.

Graham's next-door neighbor, 69-year-old Jim Langdale, described him as "a clean-cut fellow."

"He was nice, and sort of fun to talk to."

Even so, he said, he had his suspicions about Graham after hearing that the rapist police were looking for drove a red pickup. Graham also drove with his tailgate down, Langdale said, which he knew the suspect had done.

So he asked Graham why he drove with the tailgate down? Graham's answer: aerodynamics.

"He said he got better gas mileage," said Langdale, who did not go to police with his suspicions.

-- Times researcher John Martin and staff writer Angela Moore contributed to this report.

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