Gwinnett Daily Post

LAWRENCEVILLE - A 17-year-old man from Lawrenceville was jailed Friday in connection with the molestation of a young girl in a public bathroom at Collins Hill Park earlier this month.

When a police sketch of the suspect from the Feb. 3 incident was disseminated by the media over the weekend, an acquaintance of Michael Jeffery Bain recognized him as the alleged offender, said Cpl. Darren Moloney, spokesman for the Gwinnett County Police Department.

A photograph of Bain was placed in a photographic lineup for witnesses. The witnesses positively identified him as the suspect, Moloney said. Bain is being held without bond at the Gwinnett County Detention Center on charges of felony child molestation and false imprisonment.

He is also a suspect in similar offenses, and police asked that his photograph not be published while the investigation is ongoing.

A 7-year-old girl was in the baseball area of the park with her family at 5 p.m. on Feb. 3 when she told her father she was going to the bathroom. She returned a short time later saying she had been molested, Moloney said.

"As soon as she came back, they noticed something was wrong," said Moloney. "She made an immediate outcry."

Several other people who were in the baseball area noticed a man acting suspiciously prior to the attack. Police do not know if the suspect had been watching the victim or waiting in the bathroom area for a young girl to go inside.

Witnesses saw the man leave the bathroom and get into a white minivan with a group of people. He was described as a thin white man in his late teens or early 20s, 5 feet 9 inches tall, wearing a red shirt with black stripes, dark blue jeans, white tennis shoes and a black wristwatch.

The 7-year-old girl was examined later that day by a sexual assault nurse, but she did not require medical attention, Moloney said.