A 14-year-old girl who ran away last week with a man she met on the Internet was discovered Saturday morning in a McLean home, and the 22-year-old man who allegedly took her there is now on the run, Fairfax County police said yesterday.
The girl, from Bridgewater, Va., a small town outside Harrisonburg, is back with her grandparents, Bridgewater police said. Police in Bridgewater and Fairfax said that the girl was not abducted and was not held against her will for five days in the house on Hazel Lane, just behind Kent Gardens Park.
Police allege that Oliver E. Smith, who lives there with his twin brother and grandmother, sexually assaulted the girl. He is charged with one count of carnal knowledge of a child without force, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
The girl was reported missing by her grandparents the morning of Feb. 28, according to Sgt. J.M. Simmons of the Bridgewater Police Department. She had vanished without a trace. Police were trying to scour her computer and trace her phone records when they got a break.
On Saturday, the girl called friends in the Bridgewater area, Simmons said, and police began tracing the number. Then, investigators spoke to Smith, who provided them with his home address, Simmons said.
Bridgewater police called Fairfax police and found the girl in the basement of Smith's home. Christopher W. Guest, a McLean patrol officer, wrote in an affidavit for a search warrant that the girl told him she had met Smith online and that he and an associate had picked her up at her home. According to Guest's affidavit, the girl had, "under threats and intimidation, engaged in a sexual relationship with Smith."
Smith was not home. The girl pointed Guest to his computer, where icons indicated that Smith had child pornography on his hard drive, so Guest obtained a search warrant late Saturday night, police said.
Neighbors said police were at the house throughout Saturday night and most of Sunday. Investigators removed two desktop computers, 10 videotapes, 15 maps and a pair of handcuffs, according to court records.
"These kids don't know who they're talking to" during online chats, Simmons said. "It could be anybody." He said police believed the girl had been chatting with Smith for less than two weeks.
Officer Richard Henry of the Fairfax police said there was "no indication she was held against her will." He said that police had obtained one charge against Smith and that the investigation was continuing.
Neighbors said that Smith and his brother often raced cars up and down the quiet street and that a group of friends often congregated at their house. One neighbor said she saw a girl with the group last week, but did not know whether that was the Bridgewater teenager or someone else.
