http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/09/29/0929kidnapping.htmlChild's recall helped capture kidnapper, police sayOfficials say girl's descriptions of man, surroundings aided arrest.By Tony Plohetski
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Charles Butcher has been charged in abduction.
During her eight hours of captivity, a 9-year-old girl snatched while walking to school took meticulous mental notes: She knew the color of the man's truck and could describe the outside of his apartment complex and his inside decor.
Austin police Lt. Mark Spangler said Monday that the shaken girl's vivid descriptions after last week's kidnapping helped lead them to convicted sex offender Charles Eugene Butcher. She was set free, police said, after she declared, "It's time for me to go home."
Spangler said, "The 9-year-old victim, I will tell you right now, was extremely courageous.
"If not for her keeping a calm and collected mind, this situation could have turned out much differently."
Spangler said that minutes after the girl told Butcher she should be home, he drove her to an area she didn't recognize. She then persuaded him to return her to her South Austin neighborhood, Spangler said.
Police said Butcher lifted the girl off the ground Thursday while she was walking to school along Brodie Lane, put a knife to her throat and told her he would cut her if she didn't stop screaming. He then drove her to his nearby apartment, forced her into a closet, bound her hands and held her for about eight hours, police said.
Police arrested Butcher on Friday on several traffic violations, and he is being held in the Travis County Jail on charges of aggravated kidnapping and failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements, records show. His bail has been set at $600,000.
Austin police said Monday that they had received two reports that Butcher might have been peeping through neighbors' windows in a South Austin apartment complex where he lived.
Public records show that a resident reported that a man was looking through her windows in August. Spangler said investigators looked into the report and did not think the man's actions constituted a crime.
He said that while Butcher may have been looking through windows, it was unclear whether he was doing it for sexual gratification — which is required for criminal charges under state law.
Butcher's apartment complex is less than a half-mile from Kocurek Elementary School.
Spangler described more of Butcher's criminal past, including the sexual assault of a child in Korea while he was in the military in 1991.
Butcher also was convicted in Ohio for abduction with a weapon in 1995, Spangler said. Under Texas law, the Ohio offense would have been solicitation of a minor, he said.
Butcher was required to register for life as a sex offender in any state where he lived after the 1991 offense, Spangler said.
He moved to Austin in January 2008, but police said he did not register.
Spangler said Butcher had told Ohio authorities that he was moving to North Carolina, but he never showed up at the address he had given them.
Family members told Ohio authorities that they thought Butcher had gone to Texas, Spangler said. Ohio officials then sent information about Butcher to Texas law enforcement agencies in January 2008, he said.
However, police said, that information was not specific about his location, including whether he was in Austin.
Austin investigators still reviewed his file, checked to see whether he had any involvement with Austin police and kept the records, officials said.
The girl, who attends Cowan Elementary School, provided a description of Butcher's red pickup that an investigator remembered from Butcher's file, Spangler said.
Spangler said police had no information leading them to think Butcher sexually assaulted the girl.
Spangler said Butcher has declined to talk to investigators in detail.
"We would've loved to have been able to explore (Butcher's) mind to be able to figure out what his motivation was in this," Spangler said. "Was it a question as to whether he was just unable to complete his motive or was it an issue where just the abduction of the child was enough for him at this point? Without being able to talk to him in detail we won't know the answer to that."
After she was set free, the girl walked to the condominium complex where she lives, police said, and knocked on a neighbor's door.
The girl's mother had gone to her school when she didn't return home after 4 p.m. and called police when the girl reappeared.
Cowan Principal April Glenn sent parents a letter Sunday telling them about the kidnapping. The school's counseling staff and Austin police officers were on hand Monday to answer questions.
Glenn also is talking with school staff members about ways to monitor the comings and goings of students.
The district moved a bus stop to a nearby apartment complex, a more populated and safer area, district officials said.
tplohetski@statesman.com; 445-3605
Additional material from staff writer Melissa Taboada.