Alleged Assault On W& OD Trail Highlights Risks
Caution Urged After Sundown

By Bill Brubaker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 2, 2007

As the population of Northern Virginia has boomed, so has traffic on the 45-mile Washington & Old Dominion Trail, resulting in several fatal bicycle accidents and warnings by park officials that joggers, cyclists, pedestrians, skaters and horseback riders should follow safety guidelines.

But until last week, when an Ashburn woman reported an attempted sexual assault on the trail at 11:15 p.m., little attention was paid to the potential dangers that lurk after sundown, when the trail is closed.

"It's just not safe out there after dark," said Paul McCray, operations director for the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, which manages the trail. "Being on the trail is not any different than being alone and isolated anywhere late at night, such as a dark parking lot at a shopping mall. You know, if there's someone around who's going to try something, those are the areas they're going to look for."

The Loudoun County Sheriff's Office is investigating the Ashburn woman's report that she was attacked by two men July 26.

"She said they came up from behind her while she was on her bike, knocked her down and tried to sexually assault her," sheriff's department spokesman Kraig Troxell said. "She says she screamed, then heard someone else scream, off in the distance, and that's when the two men fled."

A search by sheriff's deputies and dogs and a Fairfax County police helicopter did not turn up any suspects. Sheriff's investigators planned to interview the woman again this week.

The W&OD trail, which runs from the Shirlington neighborhood of Arlington County to Purcellville in Loudoun, has a reputation as a safe and scenic refuge from city life during the day.

But park rangers do not patrol the trail at night, and deputies and police officers from the eight jurisdictions along the paved pathway do not routinely venture into the area after sundown, McCray said. The dawn-to-dusk curfew is rarely enforced, according to park authority and sheriff's department officials.

"So we advise people not to ride out there after dark, not only from a security standpoint, but also a safety standpoint," McCray said. "It's not lit. It's a narrow trail, 10 feet wide. Even during the day it's easy to wander off the trail, and at night you can't even see the edges of the trail very well."

McCray said he has received occasional reports of people being spotted on the trail late at night.

"I've heard of kids in Fairfax who were out there partying on the trail at night," he said. "And police have questioned some other people about what they were doing out there. They might have seemed suspicious. It is typical during the first half-hour after dark to see some cyclists that just didn't make it back to their cars on time. The trail is really flat and easy to ride, and sometimes people go further than they had planned."

Troxell said Loudoun deputies have made three arrests on the trail in recent years, only one of them after dark.

In June, they arrested a fugitive illegal immigrant from El Salvador who was riding a bicycle without lights about 9:30 p.m. The sheriff's department transferred the suspect, Fredy Villalta-Villacorta, 21, of Leesburg to federal authorities, who had ordered him to leave the country.

One afternoon in May 2002, deputies apprehended a man who had exposed himself to at least two people.

And in an early evening arrest, in September 2003, deputies responded to a call from a jogger who said he was attacked in what Troxell called "a W&OD road rage" case.

The 38-year-old Sterling man told the deputies he had been jogging along the trail when he was struck by a red-and-white Yamaha dirt bike. The jogger said he yelled at the man on the bike. The rider reportedly got off the bike and struck the jogger several times. The rider got away.

"We always tell people that, first and foremost, if you are going to use the trail, even in the daytime, you should try to use it in pairs," Troxell said. "You know, try to go with at least one friend -- or more.

"There are some stretches of the trail where you can be out there with no one else around. When you start getting close to Leesburg or Ashburn Village, there tend to be more people on the trail. But if you go between those two destinations or further out, you'll find less and less people."

Troxell offered one other safety tip: Keep those iPods at home.

"I know they are very popular," he said, "but we warn against using those on the trail, because you could be more susceptible to someone coming up behind you and not even hearing them."