Sex Offender Link Feared in Florida Girl's Disappearance
April 13, 2005 -- -- Police in Hillsborough County, Fla., are searching for a 13-year-old girl who has not been seen since this weekend, and investigators say they are concerned about what was described as her family's close relationship with a registered sex offender who lives in the area.
Sarah Lunde was last seen at her family's home in Ruskin on Saturday night, and police began searching for her intensively on Monday, after they were contacted by her family.
Drawing lessons from the recent abduction and murder of another Florida girl, Jessica Lunsford, detectives immediately focused on local sex offenders as part of their investigation. Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee said he even got pointers from the man who led the search in Citrus County for 9-year-old Jessica.
"I actually spoke to [Citrus County] Sheriff Dawsy ... about this case and compared notes a little bit about the process and got some good advice from him," Gee said. "It is eerily similar; I just hope it does not have the same conclusion."
Jessica Lunsford was found dead, and a sex offender who lived in her neighberhood, John Couey, has been charged with her abduction and murder. The case has led a Florida congresswoman to propose tighter federal guidelines for how sex offenders are tracked and a national registry for parents to check.
In the search for Sarah Lunde, the sheriff's office identified 24 registered sex offenders living in her neighborhood. Of those, nearly all have been located.
"Of the 24 sexual offenders that we reported were in the area, we've been able to account for 23 of these sexual predators or offenders at this time. We have one of the offenders that we believe has absconded out of state, but we've also established that this occurred well before the incident when Sarah went missing," Capt. Craig Latimer of the sheriff's office said.
All of those offenders have or will be questioned, including one person previously linked to the family. David Onstott, 36, was arrested Tuesday night in Apollo Beach on charges of failure to register as a sex offender and an unrelated charge of assault with a deadly weapon. He was booked into the Orient Road Jail and, has been questioned by detectives several times. Police did not elaborate on the connection.
