Authorities investigating the weekend disappearance of a 13-year-old girl from her family’s mobile home questioned a convicted sex offender who once had a relationship with her mother, officials said.
Volunteers continued searching Thursday for Sarah Michelle Lunde, who has a troubled past and has run away before, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s David Gee said.
But she has usually returned after a few hours, and officials don’t believe this is “a typical runaway,” he said.
Mark Lunsford, whose daughter Jessica was found slain last month after disappearing from her Citrus County home, and Roy Brown, whose daughter Amanda was killed by a convicted child molester in 1997, were among those who turned out to help deputies and the girl’s family.
By Thursday evening, Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee said there were no new developments in the search, and that investigators had just 43 telephone leads. He appealed for help from the public, offering a $10,000 reward.
The man questioned, 36-year-old David Onstott, was arrested Tuesday night in an unrelated incident in nearby Apollo Beach. Authorities say he threatened another man with a screwdriver.
“Obviously, he has our attention,” Gee said. He declined to describe David Onstott a suspect, but said Onstott had been cooperative. Onstott was being held without bail on probation violations.
Sarah disappeared after returning home Saturday night from a trip with a church youth group. Her 17-year-old brother, Andrew Lunde, said he saw her at about 9 p.m. Saturday and later went out with friends. When he returned home about 4 a.m. Sunday, the front door was open and Sarah was gone, he said. A half-empty bottle of beer had appeared on the kitchen table, he said.
About an hour later, Lunde told The Tampa Tribune, Onstott showed up at the family’s home before dawn that morning and asked for the teens’ mother.
Lunde said that when he told Onstott that his mother wasn’t home, Onstott grabbed the beer bottle and left.
“He just showed up out of the blue,” Lunde said. “It was strange.”
Sarah’s mother, thinking her daughter was at a friend’s house, didn’t report her missing until Monday.
The relationship between the girl’s mother and Onstott had ended months earlier, Gee said.
The mother, Kelly May Lunde, appearing exhausted and drawn, also pleaded for help.
“There are a lot of parents out there who can imagine what myself and my family are going through,” she said. “We are just heartbroken. We just want to get her home as soon as possible.”
Comforting the Lunde family was Lunsford, his grief still fresh from the February slaying of his 9-year-old daughter. He had shown up at 7 a.m. to search. “It’s horrible things like this are taking place,” Lunsford said.
Onstott spent 5 1/2 years in prison after being convicted in 1995 of sexual battery on an acquaintance. The victim testified Onstott knocked on her door, asked to use the bathroom then threw her on the floor and raped her.
David Onstott Sr. said he doesn’t think his son is involved in Sarah’s disappearance.
“I can’t believe he would hurt a young girl,” he said.
The sheriff’s office also interviewed the girl’s father, who lives in Zephyrhills, about 50 miles north of this Tampa Bay area town. He is not considered a suspect, Gee said.
Ruskin is about 100 miles south of Homosassa, where a three-week search for Jessica Lunsford ended with the discovery of her body last month. A registered sex offender who stayed at a home near hers has been charged with her slaying.