April 11, 2001
(MIAMI) - A native of Spain charged with a bizarre break-in and sexual assault in Miami could face a far more serious charge in France.
Francisco Arce Montez’s name was on a list of potential suspects in the murder of Caroline Dickinson, 13. The British girl was raped and strangled in 1996 while on a school trip to a youth hostel in Brittany.
Arce allegedly broke into an apartment in Miami Beach in March, cut a woman’s clothes off and masturbated. Police say that he was linked to Dickinson’s death by Tommy Ontko, an Immigration and Naturalization Service officer in Detroit who saw the name in an article in the on-line edition of a London newspaper and decided to run it through the INS computer.
Investigators are trying to determine if Arce’s DNA matches samples taken from Caroline Dickinson’s body.