A man accused of sexually assaulting his neighbor’s 6-year-old daughter has been on the run since he failed to appear for a police interview last month and told a neighbor he was moving to Montana, Hapeville police said Tuesday.
Authorities have been searching for Raymond Dean Holley since April 3, two days after the alleged sexual assault occurred.
A drunken Holley was taken in for questioning about the alleged molestation inside his unit at the Franklin Village Apartments, Hapeville police Det. Stephen Cushing told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But they released him when they determined he was too drunk to interview.
“We scheduled an interview for the Tuesday following (the alleged molestation), but he didn’t make it to that interview,” Cushing said.
A detective went to Holley’s home, but he’d already left town. “A neighbor told detectives that Holley said he was moving to Montana,” Cushing said.
But police don’t think he’s made it that far.
Holley has family in Athens, but police believe he is still in the Atlanta area, Cushing said.
Holley, 61, is wanted on charges of child molestation and two counts of false imprisonment after the child told her mother that he touched her inappropriately, according to a police report obtained by The AJC.
The girl and her 3-year-old cousin were in the care of their grandmother when they asked to go to Holley’s and watch a movie, Cushing said.
The grandmother told police she couldn’t keep a close watch on them since she was also watching her 2-year-old twin grandsons. Later that evening, the girl’s mother came home and asked the grandmother where her daughter and nephew were.
“She went to (Holley’s) door and didn’t get a response,” Cushing said. “She was nervous because it was late for them to be at someone else’s home.”
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Holley’s lights weren’t on and the door was unlocked, police said. The mother went inside and saw an intoxicated Holley standing near the door. Holley told her the children were in his bedroom sleeping. When asked why the children were wearing white T-shirts instead of their clothes, Holley told her they wet their clothes and he hung them to dry, according to the police report.
The woman grabbed the children and left the apartment, but later returned — police in tow — when her 6-year-old told her Holley “kept trying to hug me, lifted up my shirt and touched me down there,” according to the report. The mother also found a cut on the girl’s vaginal region.
Holley was questioned at his apartment, which was filled with beer cans, soiled clothing and trash, police said. Holley gave conflicting information, police said.
Police said a stumbling Holley repeated his story about the wet clothes between slurred speech and said he’d only been looking after the children for three or four months since their grandmother has had trouble watching each of her grandchildren at once.
Cushing said Holley hasn’t been seen since that interview.
Anyone with information on Holley’s whereabouts is asked to call police or 911.
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