A convicted sex offender is expected to be arraigned today on charges he sexually assaulted a little girl in 1995 and left her in a wooded area near Buckley.
Pierce County prosecutors have charged Donald Schneider, 53, with first-degree rape of a child and first-degree rape.
He is being held at the Pierce County Jail after recently being transferred from the state prison in Walla Walla. He was serving a life sentence without parole for a 2007 conviction on two counts of first-degree rape and one count of unlawful imprisonment for attacking a woman in Tacoma.
The 1995 assault took place Sept. 23 and involved a girl in the fourth grade who was a special education student, authorities said. She was waiting at a bus stop two houses down from her home when Schneider picked her up, forced her into his car and later sexually assaulted her, prosecutors said.
Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said his office considered two factors in making the decision to charge Schneider despite the life sentence he is serving.
“One, to obtain justice for this victim on this case, and two, so we have an insurance policy to keep a dangerous offender in prison, where he belongs,” Lindquist said.
According to charging papers:
A woman spotted the girl walking alone the Alder Cutoff Road near Springwater Road and stopped to check on her. The girl said a man had picked her up, assaulted her and dropped her off in the woods.
The woman took the girl to a Pierce County sheriff’s station. The girl told deputies Schneider dragged her into his car, threatened to hurt her if she tried to escape and hid her beneath a coat and blanket. After driving to the woods, he sexually assaulted her, she said.
Schneider then tied her up and told her to count to 100 before getting dressed and going home.
“He told her, ‘I’m a drunk old man and my brain needs help and I’m going to leave you here so someone can pick you up,” documents state.
The girl needed surgery to repair injuries inflicted during the assault.
Schneider was charged in late June, about a month after a DNA hit linked him to evidence recovered in 1995. Authorities said the probability that the DNA does not match Schneider is estimated to be 1 in 160 quadrillion.
He was convicted of second-degree rape and a parole violation in 1982 and of first-degree robbery and second-degree possession of stolen property in 1997, according to the state Department of Corrections.
stacia.glenn@ thenewstribune.com 253-597-8653
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.