Police chief to sexual assault suspect: Turn yourself in if you're an innocent man
SPRING LAKE, N.C. (WTVD) -- Spring Lake's police chief is responding to innocence claims from a man charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting a child this week.
"Turn yourself in, if you're an innocent man," Chief Troy McDuffie said Thursday.
On Wednesday, the department said they were looking for 28-year-old Nathan Cooley, of Spring Lake. Cooley is facing kidnapping and sexual assault charges tied to an alleged incident involving an 11-year-old earlier this week.
Authorities say sometime between 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. Tuesday, Cooley approached the child in the 500 block of Odell Road in Spring Lake. They said Cooley posed as a police officer, asking the girl to help him find a dog. Then they said the man lured her into the woods where he sexually assaulted her. When the girl began to cry and ask for her mother, police said Cooley dropped her off at the Spring Lake Public Library.
Once the child returned home, she told her mother about the incident, and her mother called police.
On Wednesday evening, shortly after authorities announced they were looking for Cooley, the man called a local television station, claiming his innocence. He said surveillance from several other places in the area will prove he couldn't have committed the crime.
An employee at the Marco's Pizza in Spring Lake was unable to confirm Cooley's alibi, placing him at the restaurant during the alleged assault. He did say Cooley usually frequented that area in the afternoons.
Cooley said he planned to turn himself in on Thursday morning, but he was a no show.
McDuffie said the call definitely sounded like Cooley, who is a man that law enforcement has been familiar with over the years. Cooley, a registered sex offender, has a record of those offenses dating back to 2004 and 2010.
"If he is an innocent man as he states, then come in, and give his side of the story to law enforcement," said McDuffie. "Allow this process to continue because one thing about it, these charges will not go away."
Cooley lives off Odell Road, in the Antoine Mobile Home Park. His landlord, Peggy Antoine, said her husband saw Cooley at his home Wednesday evening, but they knew nothing of the alleged incident, or his past, until they saw the late news.
"And when he come to rent a trailer from us, we did not run a background check on him because his brother lived here, and we did not know this," she said. "People are saying that we knew this, but we did not know that he was a pedophile."
Late Thursday, McDuffie said the department was following several new leads, and he said there is solid information tying Cooley to the assault.
"When we press charges on an individual, they're based on the facts," he continued. "They're not based on a lot of assumptions."
Anyone who has any information regarding Cooley's whereabouts is asked to contact the Spring Lake Police Department at (910) 436-0350 or Crime Stoppers at (910) 483-TIPS.
