Police in Lake Elsinore are investigating whether John Albert Gardner III, who is accused of murdering and raping Chelsea King, may be responsible for the attempted kidnapping of a girl in October, according to a published report.
The Riverside County girl told police the incident occurred as she was walking to a friend's house about 7 a.m. one morning in the Lakeland Village neighborhood, near Lake Elsinore, the Press-Enterprise newspaper reported. She said a man in a gold four-door sedan stopped to ask her for directions, then showed her a gun and demanded she get in his car.
The girl, however, ran off, then reported the incident to police.
The sketch the Press-Enterprise published came from police in October and shows a man in his 30s with a fair complexion, brown eyes and a blond crew cut.
Investigators told the paper that they have not positively linked Gardner to the attempted abduction.
"There are similarities," Lake Elsinore Police Chief Joe Cleary told the paper. "If there is a connection, we will track it down."
Gardner, a convicted sex offender, is also suspected in an attack in December on a woman in Rancho Bernardo Community Park, which is where Chelsea King went running before she was killed.
