Sacramento County sheriff’s detectives make arrest in 1997 child sex case
Months after a man’s admission earlier this year to a long-dormant case of child sexual abuse of a 3-year-old Sacramento County girl, Sacramento County sheriff’s detectives say he may have had more victims.
“We suspect there might be more victims out there. That’s why we’re reaching out to the public, if they know anything,” Ambar Vicente, a sheriff’s detective in the child abuse unit, said Tuesday at the Sheriff’s Office Old Foothill Farms headquarters “There’s a very high possibility that there’s more victims.”
John Caleb Cowper, 46, a career criminal with arrests over the years in Sacramento, Solano, Yolo and El Dorado counties, is now in Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center, near Elk Grove. He has been held since July on suspicion of lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 using force or fear in the 1997 case.
He was 18 years old and a guest at a Carmichael area gathering for family and friends in June 1997 when the alleged abuse happened — an assault on the child of the family who hosted the party.
“He was an acquaintance, someone who was there with family and friends (who) happened to be there at the event,” Vicente said.
The girl’s family went to sheriff’s investigators at the time. Cowper, they said, abused the child. Cowper was brought in for questioning and denied the allegations, Vicente said. Investigators continued to work the case but leads eventually dried up, the case relegated to inactive status.
The case sat for decades, evidence boxed and shelved away, waiting for a thaw, a new lead that could deliver answers and an arrest.
The thaw came in January. Cowper was arrested again, this time by El Dorado County deputies. The charges were unrelated to the long-ago crimes at the Carmichael party. Then came the break years in the waiting.
“He wants to talk about the case. He talks about the assault back in 1997,” Vicente, the Sacramento detective, said. Vicente did not disclose the details of Cowper’s conversation with El Dorado County authorities, but the words were enough for El Dorado detectives to investigate further and pick up the phone. El Dorado County sheriff’s investigators determined it was Sacramento County’s case.
“We tell them, ‘We have that case. We still have it. We can do something about it,’” Vicente said. Sheriff’s investigators reopened the case.
The detective who would take the case in Sacramento County was Josh Hartin, a veteran investigator who avoids the spotlight.
“He works hard, he’s a hard-working guy,” Vicente said.
Hartin’s case had new life. It began again with news for the girl, now an adult with a family of her own.
“You go and knock on the door and say, ‘I know it’s been so many years, but there’s something we want to talk about,” Vicente said. “It might be really hard but we want to talk to you about something that happened a very long time ago and if you’re willing to talk to us again.”
“They were shocked and surprised at the same time,” Vicente said of the family’s reaction to the news. “There were a lot of emotions, a lot of feelings.” The woman agreed to talk again with Hartin and detectives as the investigation into Cowper ground on.
“It is a long process. It’s not like on ‘CSI,’ where it’s one or two days and, ‘Why is he not in custody today?’” Vicente said.
“You get this info, but, unfortunately, he’s still out and about. You’ve got to track him down. Does he have a home? Is he unhoused? Is he living still in the area? Is he out of state?,” Vicente continued.
“You’ve got to bring back that (evidence). And, then, you’ve got to knock on that door. ‘Are you willing to come forward? We can do something. Are you willing to go through it again?’”
Cowper was arrested July 31 by Sacramento County detectives. He next appears on the charges Sept. 12 in Sacramento Superior Court.
But the search for more potential victims continues, Vicente said.
“We know that he moved so much that we just want to know if there are more people out there, that there’s more victims out there,” Vicente said. “If anybody recognizes him, something may have happened that they have information about. We want to know.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office at 916-874-5191.
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