Detective’s Perseverance Pays Off : Recreation Aide Held in Sex Attacks on Boys

A 26-year-old Lynwood Recreation Center director was arraigned Wednesday on 14 counts of felony sexual assaults on teen-age El Monte boys.

Edward J. Salido Jr. of El Monte was charged in Rio Hondo Municipal Court with four counts of forcible oral copulation and two counts each of assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to orally copulate, false imprisonment, sexual battery and kidnaping.

The charges stem from attacks on five boys between the ages of 15 and 18 over the past two years, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Amy Suehiro said.

Municipal Judge Gordon McNulty set bail at $500,000. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for March 20.

Salido was arrested by two El Monte police detectives at about 6 p.m. Sunday, after a two-day stakeout in the Peck Road Reservoir area adjoining Arroyo High School in the 4900 block of Cedar Avenue, police said.

Diligent Search for Two Years

Police said the arrest was a personal triumph for one of the detectives, Linda Parrott, who for two years has been hunting for the masked man who threatened teen-age boys with a knife or a handgun, forcing them to commit sexual acts.

“Detective Mark Sullivan and I were conducting a surveillance in the reservoir area,” Parrott said in an interview. “I’d been staking out the area on and off for two years with other detectives. This time we had a very good description of the attacker given to us by his last victim.

“Then along came this man fitting the description very closely--same size, height, weight, coloring. . . . He was even wearing clothing that matched our description.

“When we arrested him he had a knife and a mask, hand made from a piece of turquoise cloth. He also had a gun, but it wasn’t a real handgun, it was a starter’s pistol.”

Jim Given, recreation supervisor for the Lynwood Recreation and Parks Department, said Salido has been a recreation center director for about 18 months.