BY WILLIAM A. WEATHERS
The Cincinnati Enquirer
A 14-year-old girl returning from a shopping trip Wednesday was assaulted, bound, gagged and left alongside railroad tracks in Pleasant Ridge.
Workers at a nearby business spotted the semiconscious teen after she managed to stand up and hop a few steps before collapsing. "She was tied up with a extension cord," said Roger Bolen, one of the employees of P-G Products Inc., 5200 Lester Road, who went to her aid.
Mr. Bolen said the girl was just barely conscious and her clothing was torn.
There was a bag of groceries laying on the ground nearby, he said. Cincinnati police Sgt. Barry Carr said police received the call at 3:36 p.m. about a female found alongside the tracks.
He confirmed the girl's hands were tied with an electric cord, and said her feet were bound with clothing and a sock was stuffed in her mouth.
The victim, who was able to give police a description of her attacker before she was transported to Children's Hospital Medical Center, had been beaten and cut, Sgt. Carr said.
Police did not say if the assault was a possible sexual assault. She was treated in the emergency room and released Wednesday evening, a hospital spokesman said.
The victim was apparently returning home after shopping at the Bigg's store on Highland Avenue in nearby Columbia Township, Sgt. Carr said.
A time-stamped grocery receipt showed she had gone through the checkout line just after 2 p.m., he said.
The railroad tracks are a shortcut neighborhood residents use to get to the Highland Ridge Plaza shopping center, Sgt. Carr said.
Police were searching for a black man in his 40s, 6-feet tall with a thin build, who was seen limping or staggering away from the area and who may have boarded a bus, Sgt. Carr said.
