Former Victim Helps Police Find Sex Assault Suspect.

By DEBRA BOGSTIE

Updated 6:03 PM EST, Wed, Nov 19, 2008

Print Email Share TWITTER FACEBOOK

Police arrested a suspect in the attempted sexual assault of a Connecticut teenager after getting a tip from a former victim on Tuesday.

A registered sex offender from Fairfield was accused of attacking a teenager on her way home from school.

The latest incident happened in broad daylight. A 16-year-old Fairfield girl was attacked in her own neighborhood, not from her school Friday afternoon.

Eric Julian, 26, is accused of attempting to sexually assault the girl.

"I noticed this guy just lurking around and he didn't seem like he had any reason for being there," said neighbor Debby Zindel of Fairfield. "But I let is go and I guess I shouldn't have," she added.

The victim told police the suspect approached her as she walked home from high school. He claimed to have a knife and forced her into her backyard. He tried to taker her clothes off, but ran off as she continued to scream, said police.

"I grew up in this neighborhood, two blocks from here, and it really is a shock," Sally Williams, Fairfield, told a reporter. "It's never, never happened in all those years."

Julian is on the state's sex offender registry. Police said they caught him thanks to help from an earlier sexual assault victim who told them the same thing happened to her in 2002.

Julian is a convicted sex offender who was paroled two months ago after serving four and half years in prison for three prior sexual assaults in 2002. All three crimes were committed within weeks of each other.

"Clearly she was aware that he was released from prison and was vigilant enough to know that this sounds like something that was familiar to me," said Gary McNamara, Deputy Chief of Fairfield Police.

Police in nearby Redding said they are now looking into whether Julian is to blame for trying to kidnap a jogger early Tuesday.

"I think that we are extremely fortunate that this woman who was a victim of a sexual assault came forward," McNamara said about the tipster.