Accused kidnapper admits attacking woman walking dog
A homeless man and convicted sex offender has admitted grabbing, choking and sexually assaulting a 29-year-old woman who was walking her dog this week on the Platte River Trail.
Johnny DeWayne Harris Jr., 48, told Littleton police that he attacked the woman from behind, put a rope around her neck, dragged her into a wooded area and sexually assaulted her.
Harris is being held for investigation of sexual assault and kidnapping on a $1 million bond in the Arapahoe County Jail.
Harris has an extensive criminal history in Colorado and Texas.
On Jan. 1, 1999, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison on a charge of sex assault on a child. The girl he molested was 15 years old, according to 265th Judicial District Court records in Dallas.
On Dec. 1, 2016 he was sentenced to 79 days in jail and 18 months of probation on a conviction in Denver for failing to register as a sex offender, according to Denver District Court records.
A month into his probationary sentence he was arrested on suspicion of five counts, including attempted obscenity involving a child, two counts of indecent exposure and harassment. In a plea deal, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of exposing his genitals and was placed on sex offender intensive probation.
Littleton police Cmdr. Trent Cooper said that other Denver metro police agencies are investigating Harris for other possible sex assaults.
Police have not identified the woman who was attacked but Littleton resident Vanessa Ursini has come forward and said she was the one who was assaulted while walking her dog, Berreta, around 7:15 a.m. Wednesday. She described the attack in hopes of alerting other people about predators.
When Littleton police did a lineup later Wednesday morning, Ursini said she was “300 percent” certain that Harris was her attacker.
Harris was advised of his rights and agreed to speak with police that morning at Littleton police headquarters.
Harris told police he put a rope around the woman’s throat, dragged her into some bushes, pulled her pants off and sexually assaulted her. While Ursini was fighting her, Harris said, he lost his glasses and could not see.
He then tied her hands and feet together behind her back and tried to gag her with his bandanna, “telling her not to scream.”
“I fought like hell and screamed my brains out. Even my sweet dog tried to fight him and bite him as much as she could. He threatened to kill me, I believe to get me to stop screaming. I thought that this could be the end, but I was not about to give up fighting for my life,” Ursini wrote in a detailed Facebook post.