Girl's family works to locate rapist

By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- He left her for dead.
That's how the anguished father of a 16-year-old East Side girl described what happened after his daughter was beaten and raped in Lincoln Park last Sunday.
"I'm gonna kill him. I don't care about prison," the father said Friday. "He hurt my baby."
During interviews Friday with The Vindicator, the father and a cousin who lives in Cleveland asked that their names not be used until the suspect is arrested.
The cousin said the family is distributing 1,000 bright yellow fliers this weekend offering a reward and asking that anyone with information contact the Youngstown Police Department. Patrolmen Anthony Harris and Milton Eskew in the juvenile division are investigating the case.
The amount of the reward, donations from family and friends, hasn't been determined, but the cousin is hoping for $2,000.
"She's a baby, pure and innocent, for a pig to take away something that didn't belong to him," the cousin said. "Thank God, she's a fighter."
The teenager, of Shehy Street, was hospitalized about 3:15 p.m. Sunday, after she ran naked across the bridge in Lincoln Park to a park security guard.
How it happened
The girl told officers that she had taken a shortcut through the park to get to her grandmother's home on Park Heights and was grabbed by a thin black man with a mustache wearing black pants and coat and a black hat with a white "K" on it.
She was dragged by her hair about 80 feet into the park, fighting against the attack the whole time, police said.
She told police she was punched and kicked more times than she could remember. Her injuries included swollen upper and lower lips, right eye swollen shut, both cheeks and jaw bruised and swollen, the top of her head bleeding and blood coming from both ears.
The man, she said, had dragged her to the foot bridge, told her to sit down and take off her clothes and threatened to kill her. He made her lie on top of her jacket on the walking bridge and raped her, reports show.
Pushed her off bridge
After the attack, the suspect tried to smother the teenager and then, when that didn't work, pushed her over the bridge, and she fell 12 feet into the rocky and rain-swollen creek.
The father said his daughter had taken the shortcut through the park hundreds of times. Since the attack, everybody is scared in the neighborhood, he said.
"She's just a regular 16-year-old. She doesn't look for trouble," the father said with a catch in his voice. "She doesn't smoke or drink. She's a good girl, and I'm not saying that just because she's my daughter. He left her for dead."
The father described his eldest daughter as a church member and a straight-A student who likes to stay home to watch movies or go to the mall with friends.
"We just want to catch this guy," the father said, holding back tears. "He's still out there."
His said his younger daughter, 12, hasn't left her big sister's side. "It's been pretty rough," he said.
Lt. Robin Lees, YPD spokesman, said Harris and Eskew took the girl to Lincoln Park on Thursday and walked through the crime scene with her and re-interviewed people in the area. Lees said the officers are following leads as they come in but added that it will take time to sort them all out.
Lees said the flier, or anything that keeps attention focused on the crime, is helpful.
"We won't stop until we find him," the cousin said. "She never saw the man before, but she'll know him if she sees him again."