Wallace, Idaho – A manhunt was under way today in Colorado and western states for a registered sex offender who is suspected of stabbing his 12-year-old daughter and leaving her near a north Idaho campground, Shoshone County Sheriff Chuck Reynalds said.
The girl was covered with stab wounds and was in critical condition at Sacred Heart Medical Center in nearby Spokane, Wash., Reynalds said. She is expected to live.
John Rollins Tuggle, 37, a registered sex offender who was released from an Idaho prison last year after serving nine years for rape, is the only suspect in the case, Reynalds said.
“We have the whole world looking for him,” Reynalds said, including the FBI.
Deputies have interviewed the girl, and were searching areas where Tuggle has relatives, the sheriff said.
The girl lives in Athol, which is south of Sandpoint.
Reynalds said the girl was found lying in brush alongside a road in the Lost Creek drainage, north of Wallace, by people who said they heard her yell as they were searching for a campsite. She was bound and had stab wounds “all over” her body, Reynalds said Tuggle was believed to be driving a red 1989 Ford Escort with Colorado license plates and “is known to carry large knives on his person and in his vehicle,” the sheriff’s office said on a wanted poster.
Tuggle is described as 6-foot and 200 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes and numerous tattoos. He is an “outdoorsy person” who could be hiding in remote areas of the mountainous Idaho Panhandle, Reynalds said.
Tuggle was released from an Idaho prison in January 2004 after serving the statutory rape sentence and moved to Colorado, Reynalds said.
Authorities have no motive for the attack.
“Anger, alcohol, we have no idea,” Reynalds said.
In Colorado, Routt County Sheriff John Warner said Tuggle was living outside of Hayden, Colo., with his brother, Chris.
He registered as a sex offender in Routt County on Feb. 2, 2004, and has fully complied with Colorado law regarding his sex offender status, Warner said.
Tuggle most recently worked as a painter in Steamboat Springs, Colo.
