Md. man charged in attempted burglary, sex assault

Jen Lawson

Tuesday, May 20, 2003 | 9:41 a.m.

A Maryland man who was calling himself "the medicine man of love and peace" stepped into an unlocked house in the small Clark County town of Mountain Springs, got into bed with an 8-year-old girl and put a pill in her mouth, Metro Police said.

Donald Felix Keesing, 37, of Silver Spring, Md., was being treated Monday for injuries at University Medical Center that police say were inflicted by the girl's father, Sgt. Chris Darcy of Metro's sexual assault unit said.

When Keesing is released, he will be booked into Clark County Detention Center on charges of attempted sexual assault of a victim under 14 and burglary with intent to commit sexual assault, police said.

"It is very bizarre," Darcy said. "This doesn't happen very often -- ever that I know of."

Early Sunday residents of the Mountain Springs, about 12 miles west of Blue Diamond reported seeing Keesing speeding through the town in a silver Hyundai with New Mexico license plates, police said. About 4 a.m., Keesing lost control of the car and it stuck in an embankment about 80 yards from the alleged victim's house.

Keesing got out of the car and vandalized it, Darcy said.

After undressing from the waist down and stuffing his pants in a broken taillight, Keesing walked up to the house, discovered that the front door was unlocked and went inside at about 5:15 a.m., police allege.

Keesing went into a bedroom and awoke a houseguest, "rambling something about being the medicine man of love and peace," Darcy said. He left the room, and the houseguest woke the homeowners.

Keesing had wandered into a bedroom shared by the homeowners' 8-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son and got under the covers with the girl, Darcy said.

"He placed an unknown pill in her mouth and wrapped his arms around her," Darcy said. "She feigned sleep and managed to spit the pill out" without him noticing.

The girl's parents ran to the bedroom and yanked Keesing out of the bed, police said. Keesing and the girl's father began fighting as the mother called 911. Keesing suffered serious injuries. The father tied him up with rope. During the fracas, the pill was lost, Darcy said.

Darcy said investigators believe Keesing may have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs because "his behavior was quite bizarre." Police are awaiting lab tests that will determine what was in his bloodstream.