Family member sought in sexual assault of teen, beating of her mother
Philadelphia police on Tuesday were searching for a Frankford man they say beat his wife, knocking her unconscious, and assaulted his 13-year-old stepdaughter before fleeing after neighbors had called 911.
Philadelphia police on Tuesday were searching for a Frankford man they say beat his wife, knocking her unconscious, and assaulted his 13-year-old stepdaughter before fleeing after neighbors had called 911.
Police were still searching for the suspect Tuesday night. (The Inquirer is not identifying the man because doing so would disclose the name of a victim of a sexual attack.)
Police said officers who arrived on the 1900 block of Pratt Street about 12:25 a.m. found the girl distraught. She told them that she had been sexually assaulted by her stepfather and that he might still be in the house.
She said that while she was being sexually assaulted in her home, she screamed for her mother, but got no response, Capt. Mark Burgmann, commander of the Special Victims Unit, said during a briefing Tuesday afternoon.
Officers climbed onto a front-porch roof from an adjoining home and peered into the second-floor bedroom window of the girl's house, police said; they saw her 38-year-old mother inside, bleeding and appearing unconscious.
A SWAT unit was called. After going through the house, they found only the suspect's wife, unconscious and bleeding on their bed.
Burgmann said the suspect had beaten the woman, knocking out some teeth. He then allegedly went into his stepdaughter's room, where the girl had been sleeping, and sexually assaulted her, Burgmann said. Afterward, he took the girl to the basement and sexually assaulted her a second time.
After he left the basement, the girl ran out of the house and alerted neighbors, who called police.
The girl's mother was in critical condition Tuesday night at Einstein Medical Center with "severe head injuries," Burgmann said.
Burgmann said the suspect, his wife, and stepdaughter were the only three people who lived in the house.
Burgmann said the girl is now in the custody of a family member. He said there hasn't been any indication before that she was sexually abused by her stepfather.
"You don't expect this from your own family; you just don't," the captain said of the entire episode.
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