PASADENA – Pasadena police say an 8-year-old girl was kidnapped and raped at knifepoint by a stranger on July 15.
Damien Lavon Johnson, 27, is charged with super aggravated sexual assault of a child and is being held on a $500,000 bond at the Harris County Jail.
According to court documents, the little girl was playing with her sisters outside her apartment at the Camino Del Sol complex on Red Bluff Road.
Prosecutors say a doorbell camera captured Johnson, who did not live at the complex, walking by the girl’s apartment two hours before he allegedly abducted her.
“This defendant was a stranger to her. He came in his car, abducted her, grabbed her, put her in his car, drove away to a nearby location, and sexually assaulted her in the vehicle,” said Preston Burns, assistant district attorney for Harris County’s Crimes Against Children division.
In charging documents reviewed by KPRC 2, the little girl told police the suspect told her to shut up because she was screaming and then pulled a knife and said he did not want to hurt her.
Investigators say Johnson returned the girl to the apartment complex 30 minutes later where she told her mother what happened.
Additional surveillance video from the apartment complex gave investigators a clear look at the vehicle Johnson was driving. They traced it to a car rental company where they were able to use transaction history to link the vehicle to Johnson.
Prosecutors say he returned the car to the lot after the alleged attack and then tried to kill himself by overdosing on pills. Houston Fire Department paramedics responded to the rental lot and took Johnson to the hospital.
Investigators say Johnson told them his life was bad, he was homeless and wanted to kill himself.