City police reopen case in 1996 rape of girl, 7

Missteps included never questioning a prime suspect. Now, a DNA sample from him is sought.

Original Story: A 7-year-old 'knew who did it'
The police report listing incident as 'lost child'

By Mark Fazlollah,
Michael Matza
and Craig R. McCoy
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

Philadelphia police have reopened their investigation into the 1996 kidnapping and rape of a 7-year-old North Philadelphia girl - a case that police had earlier closed after a series of blunders.

An Inquirer article published Dec. 19 described in detail how the case was mishandled.

Last week, sex-crimes detectives began a fresh investigation, reaching out to the victim's mother and launching a search for the man who was identified in 1996 as a prime suspect but was never questioned.

Police have obtained a search warrant compelling the man to provide a DNA sample. Police want to see whether his DNA matches a semen sample recovered during a medical exam of the girl hours after the rape.

No DNA test was done in 1996 because the sex-crimes unit closed its investigation without contacting the man or seeking a DNA sample.

The Inquirer article, part of a series on the Police Department's handling of sexual-assault cases, described a string of missteps so severe that, by the department's own account, the 7-year-old girl was traumatized all over again.

The patrol officer who responded to a 911 call questioned the child harshly, then wrote up the incident as a "lost child," making no mention of the kidnapping or sexual assault.

The officer did not take the child to a hospital, secure the crime scene, search for evidence or alert the sex-crimes unit - all required steps when someone reports a sexual assault.

Instead, she drove the child home and, finding no one there, left her with a neighbor.

Soon afterward, the victim's mother got home, pieced together what had happened, and called police. Then, the girl was taken to a hospital, where an exam confirmed that she had been raped. The sex-crimes unit was called in.

But the lead investigator, Roscoe Cofield, never contacted the man identified by the girl and her relatives as the attacker. Cofield left a business card at the man's address and told his mother that police wanted to speak to him. Cofield said he never heard from the man.

Reporters contacted the suspect last month, at the same address Cofield visited. The man, whose name is being withheld by The Inquirer because he has not been charged, said he had nothing to do with the rape.

Several days after the Dec. 19 Inquirer article, police contacted Mary Williams, the victim's mother. Williams said a rape-squad investigator told her police were making another attempt to question the man.

"They're going after him again," Williams said.

Williams said the investigator told her police had obtained a warrant. The warrant allows police to take a blood sample from the man for DNA testing.

On Monday, the man's mother told reporters that police came to her North Philadelphia home last week seeking to question her son. She said she was unable to locate him.

"He was here on Christmas, but I don't see him that often," the mother said.

The Police Department said yesterday it would have no comment on the reopening of the case.

The girl, now 11, was kidnapped on Jan. 12, 1996, while playing in the snow outside her aunt's house, near Allegheny Avenue and Seventh Street in the Fairhill section. Mary Williams had left her daughter at the house while she went grocery shopping. A teenage niece was baby-sitting.

Around 1 p.m., a man dragged the 7-year-old into his car and drove to Fairmount Park. Near the East Park Reservoir, between Kelly Drive and 33d Street, he pulled over and raped her inside the car. Then he pushed her out of the vehicle and drove off.

The child stumbled through the snow to nearby Ridge Avenue, where she found a woman on the street and told her that she had been raped. The woman took her to the home of a friend, who called 911.

The responding officer, Sheila Pressley, questioned the child brusquely, then called her supervisor to report that the case was not a rape but simply a "lost child," according to findings of a departmental inquiry.

Pressley then took the child home, left her with a next-door neighbor, and wrote a note for Mary Williams on a police incident-report form that said: "Your child . . . was lost."

The police Internal Affairs Bureau began an inquiry after Williams complained about Pressley's conduct.

Pressley, questioned by internal-affairs investigators, explained her actions that day by saying the child never told her she had been raped.

A disciplinary board reviewed the evidence, rejected that explanation, and in July 1996 ordered Pressley suspended without pay for six days for "neglect of duty."

Pressley, now on desk duty, has filed for arbitration in an effort to reverse the ruling. She is still awaiting a hearing. She has declined to comment on the case.

After the rape, the girl's relatives told Cofield that the child had provided a description of her assailant that matched that of a man known to them - a North Philadelphia man who had dated the girl's aunt.

The niece who had been baby-sitting told Cofield that the man had stopped by the house on the day of the attack.

The 7-year-old girl identified the rapist by a nickname - the same one used by the North Philadelphia man. The girl's relatives gave Cofield the man's full name and address.

Cofield, who retired last year, said he closed his investigation because the man did not call him back and he did not have time to continue looking for him. He said he was under constant pressure from supervisors to close cases as quickly as possible.

The internal-affairs inquiry was limited to Pressley's actions. Cofield's investigation has never been subjected to departmental scrutiny.

The kind of DNA comparison police want to conduct is routine in rape investigations - and can clear as well as incriminate a suspect.

Mary Williams said she welcomed the renewed police interest.

"If he did it, I want them to arrest him," she said. "If he didn't do it, I want to know that."