Missing Girl Granddad's Dark Past

The grandfather of a missing 9-year-old girl has admitted to police that he was arrested a half-century ago for attempted rape and planning a kidnapping.

Officers say there is no sign that Archie Lunsford had anything to do with his granddaughter's disappearance but are not ruling him out as a suspect.

Jessica Marie Lunsford hasn't been seen since Feb. 23, after her grandmother tucked her into bed at the family's home, about 60 miles north of Tampa.

Lunsford confirmed to detectives that he had been arrested three times in the 1950s after investigators found his record while checking the backgrounds of the grandparents and the girl's father, Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy said. The Lunsfords and their son and granddaughter live together.

Archie Lunsford said Indianapolis authorities arrested him in 1954 on a charge of planning a kidnapping during what he described as a custody dispute. He was arrested again in Indianapolis four years later for assault and battery. In 1959, authorities in Titusville, Fla., arrested him for attempted rape of an adult woman.

Lunsford told detectives he was never convicted, but Dawsy said the difficulty of finding old criminal records meant he could not immediately confirm the stories.

The girl was last seen by her grandparents, before she went to bed on Feb. 23. They said they put her to bed after she returned from a church function.

Her father told authorities he had returned the next morning from a girlfriend's home, coming in through the locked back door as he usually does, and was getting ready for work when he realized his daughter's alarm clock was sounding and she wasn't there.

The clothes she had laid out for school were still in place, and none of her shoes were gone. However, a doll was missing and one of the doors to the house was unlocked.

Dawsy said Lunsford's story checked out.

On Friday, family and friends held a fundraiser in Gaston County, N.C., for Lunsford.

Longtime friend Guy Zeuner says Mark Lunsford is unemployed and could use the support. As a labor of love, he says he has been grilling barbeque since midnight to raise money for his friend Mark.

"I miss Jessie just as much as he does and I want him to have that hug from her. And every dollar that we can raise so he can have that hug is more important than me sleeping, " Zeuner said.

The girl's mother and stepfather, who live in southern Ohio, have joined the search.