Citizen’s call results in recovery of runaway

CLARKSVILLE, Ark. (AP) — A call from a citizen who thought a pair of hitchhikers in Clarksville looked too young resulted in the arrest of a Montana rape suspect and the recovery of a 14-year-old runaway girl from Erie, Pa.

Clarksville Police Chief Gary Donaldson said Friday that officers questioned the two near the Interstate 40 and U.S. 64 interchange late Thursday night. Donaldson said Donald Ray Cates, 21, of Lewistown, Mont., tried to run away and leave the girl behind when he realized he was going to be arrested.

Officers were able to restrain Cates and take him to jail, where he was being held on warrants out of Montana. Donaldson said no decision on local charges has been made yet, and he said the FBI was involved, raising the possibility of federal charges.

Eric Barnhart, the FBI’s supervisory senior agent in Billings, Mont., said Friday that Cates’ last known address was Lewistown and that Cates had no known ties to Billings.

Officials said Cates and the girl had been communicating by e-mail and phone for the past two years, and that the girl’s mother thought Cates was a teenager.

Donaldson said the girl was being held in a juvenile facility awaiting the arrival of family members.

“Her parents are on the way. Hopefully, we can reunite that family,” he said.

In 2005, when Cates was 17, he was charged with raping five girls in Montana. A mistrial was declared, in part because a police officer interrogated him without notifying his parents. Late last month the Montana Supreme Court ruled it would not constitute double jeopardy to retry Cates on the rape charges.

Donaldson said it was fortunate that Cates and the girl stood out along the roadside.

“With the interstate coming through here, we see hitchhikers all the time,” Donaldson said. “It was a wonderful thing for them to call us.”

The chief said the story the two gave didn’t hold up and that Cates gave several false names.

“One lie leads to another lie, and you can’t remember the first one you told,” Donaldson said.

Donaldson said his department was among the first in the nation to start displaying pictures of missing children in the rear window of police cruisers, which he said may have heightened awareness among residents of the western Arkansas city of about 8,000.

“Our officers just did their job, but they did it well,” he said.