By Les Zaitz
The Enterprise
NYSSA – Police are asking the public’s help in finding a convicted child abuser who is wanted on new charges of attempting to rape a 10-year-old Nyssa girl.
Douglas R. Villines, 42, was indicted last month by a Malheur County grand jury on three counts of first-degree sex abuse, two counts of first-degree attempted rape, two counts of unlawful penetration, and one count each of first-degree sodomy and failing to report as a sex offender.
Malheur County Sheriff Brian Wolfe issued the call for help late Wednesday, warning that Villines is considered dangerous. Nyssa Police Chief Ray Rau also put out the plea since Villines was last known to live in Nyssa.
Nyssa Police Lt. Don Ballou said Thursday morning that Villines lived in a RV park north of town but his whereabouts now are unknown. He said if anyone spots him, they should call police immediately.
“I probably wouldn’t approach him,” said Ballou.
Amanda Benjamin, Malheur County deputy district attorney, petitioned the court last month for an order that Villines not be released if arrested because he “constitutes a danger to members of the public.” She said otherwise bail should be set at $1 million. A warrant for Villines set bail at $500,0000.
According to court records, Villines has an extensive criminal record that includes aggravated assault and battery.
He was charged in Malheur County in 2007 with first-degree rape of a child and subsequently pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual abuse, according to a court filing by Benjamin.
In that case, Benjamin wrote, “The defendant fled to Arkansas to avoid prosecution and had to be tracked down and extradited to Oregon.”
She said the detective who investigated that case – Detective Dan Perkins of the Malheur County Sheriff’s Office – conducted the most recent investigation too.
Perkins observed Villines “use similar evasive tactics during the current investigation,” failing to show up for an interview, calling the detective to say he wouldn’t appear, and that he was in Idaho, according to a court filing.
Wolfe said his officer is unsure where Villines is and he could be back in Arkansas.
“Obviously that is as concern and we are trying to make a determination about where he might be,” said Wolfe.
According to the latest indictment, Villines assaulted a relative over three days last October. The girl told her mother.
“The mother of the child initially expressed disbelief in the disclosures of her child and has taken actions to punish the child,” Benjamin said in a court filing. The girl is now in the custody of the state Department of Human Services.
The girl’s statements to authorities were recounted in a new court filing last week, including the abuse that happened while her mother was at work.
“The child described being hit with a belt repeatedly,” the court document recounted. “The child also described hearing Doug talk about stabbing someone he was friends with in prison.”
The girl also said Villines “threatened to break her 4-year-old brother’s neck for wetting his pants,” according to the filing.
The Idaho Department of Correction reported Thursday that its record show that Villines convicted in 1995 in Gem County for aggravated battery and sentenced to up to eight years. He was convicted that year in Payette County of grand theft and in Canyon County of forgery and received sentences for both. He started his prison sentence in Idaho on June 5, 1995, and was released on parole on Jan. 1, 2002, to be supervised in Oregon.
In 2003, he was convicted of second-degree escape. The Oregon Department of Corrections reported he was sentenced to prison, serving time at prisons in Salem and Ontario before he was released in June 2004. He was returned to prison in Idaho for parole violation, where he remained until July 2005.
After pleading guilty to sex abuse in 2007, he returned to the Oregon prison system, serving time in prisons in Pendleton and Ontario before he was released in February 2009.
In 2011, he was convicted in Malheur County for first-degree theft and the following year was convicted in Washington County for receiving or transferring stolen vehicles. He was sentenced to five years in priso, returned to the Idaho prison system in August 2012 and was released from South Idaho Correctional Institution on April 4, 2017.
Reporter Pat Caldwell contributed to this report. Contact: [email protected] or call 541-473-3377.