Metro detectives follow lead on missing Las Vegas girl

Jace Radke

Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2000 | 10:55 a.m.

After almost 10 months, Metro Police detectives may have finally received a break in the case of Karla Rodriguez, a 7-year-old who disappeared from a neighborhood near downtown Las Vegas in October.

Detectives are working to determine if there is a connection between Rodriguez and an ex-convict arrested in San Jose, Calif., on Saturday. Curtis Dean Anderson, 39, has been charged with 11 crimes including kidnapping and a variety of molestation charges after a missing 8-year-old girl unlocked her shackles and escaped from his car Saturday in Santa Clara, Calif.

"There are similarities between this abduction and the Karla Rodriguez case, but there is nothing to link the suspect to Karla at this point," Sgt. Al Salinas of Metro's missing persons detail said. "We're not ruling him out."

The similarities include the little girls' ages, and the fact that the parents of the missing children last saw their daughters as they walked to or from school.

Rodriguez was last sighted playing with her friends a few blocks from her home near the intersection of Sixth Street and St. Louis Avenue on the evening of Oct. 20. Her mother last saw her daughter as she walked to school that morning but didn't report her missing until the next day, thinking her daughter had spent the night at a friend's house.

Salinas says that Anderson is known to have lived in Las Vegas in March of this year when he registered as a felon.

"We know that he did live in Las Vegas, but we don't know if he was here when Karla disappeared," Salinas said. "We're working with California authorities and the FBI to try to work out a timeline."

Anderson was most recently released from prison in May of 1999 and finished his parole last November, Vallejo, Calif., Police Lt. JoAnn West said.

"At first we thought he was released in November, but now it looks like that's when he finished parole, and he was actually released from prison in May," West said. "He's been in and out so much that it has been tough to determine."

Anderson has been in prison 10 times in the past 14 years and has been convicted at least five times, including charges of possession of a deadly weapon and grand theft, according to the California Department of Corrections. He has a record of arrests for drugs, theft and threatening women over the last 21 years. His parole was revoked three years ago for exposing himself to a child.

Anderson will be formerly arraigned on Friday in connection with the kidnapping of 8-year-old Midsi Sanchez last week in Vallejo.

Sanchez disappeared on her way home from school Thursday, and police believe she spent her time in captivity shackled inside Anderson's car. She managed to free herself by unlocking the shackles when Anderson made a short stop in an industrial area and went inside a business to ask his former employer for a large plastic garbage bag, Vallejo police said.

Police are also investigating Anderson in connection with the Dec. 9, 1999, disappearance of 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild, who was last seen on her way to school in Vallejo.

Her mother, Antoinette Robinson, worked as a night driver at Vallejo City Cab, and Anderson also worked there briefly as a driver close to the time that Fairchild disappeared, authorities said.

West said that police are sifting through items in Anderson's garbage-strewn car, and through his former residences to discover if there is any link between Sanchez's abduction and the other two missing girls. Police seized 10 bags of evidence from Anderson's mother's home on Tuesday.