Sex Offender Dad Sought in Daughter's Stabbing

July 22, 2005 -- -- A manhunt is under way in the mountains of the Idaho panhandle for the sex offender father of a 12-year-old girl who was found bound, stabbed and cowering in the bushes along a rural road near Wallace, Idaho, on Wednesday.

The FBI has joined with local authorities in the search for 37-year-old convicted sex offender John Rollins Tuggle, who had been living near Hayden, Colo. Police said that before Tuggle showed up at the Idaho home where the girl lived with her mother, he hadn't seen his daughter since he was sent to an Idaho prison in 1995.

"He came to visit his daughter not seen for 10 years," Shoshone County Sheriff Chuck Reynalds said. "So he came to visit and he [was] supposed to take the young girl to the mall. Instead, he went to the mountains."

Police issued a warrant for Tuggle's arrest on a charge of suspicion of attempted murder, and said they have no other suspects in the case.

"We have the whole world looking for him," Reynalds said. Deputies interviewed the girl in the hospital where she was recovering from her wounds, and they were searching areas where Tuggle has relatives, the sheriff said.

Criminal records show Tuggle served nine years in an Idaho prison for the statutory rape of a relative and was released from prison in January 2004.

Idaho police said the girl was found near a campsite above the town of Wallace. She had been stabbed multiple times and crawled into the brush where she was left alone. There was also evidence the girl had been sexually assaulted, but that had not yet been confirmed, police said.

Police said they don't know what led to the attack.

"Anger, alcohol, we have no idea," Reynalds said.

She was stabbed at about 1 p.m. and wasn't found until about five hours later. A family looking for a campsite reportedly heard her calling for help.

"If these people had not come by, I am positive she would probably have died," Reynalds said.

A medical helicopter airlifted the girl to a hospital in Couer d'Alene about 90 miles away. The girl was then transferred to a Spokane, Wash., hospital. She was listed in critical condition following surgery Thursday afternoon, but was expected to survive.