Sex offender accused of attacking girl in Raleigh church bathroom

Police say a 33-year-old registered sex offender from Franklin County carried a 6-year-old girl into a North Raleigh church bathroom Tuesday and sexually assaulted her while he stifled her scream.

William Brandon Coffey was charged with first-degree sexual offense with a child, first-degree kidnapping and taking indecent liberties with a child.

In asking for a search warrant to collect blood, saliva and hair samples from Coffey, Raleigh police said he saw the girl in a hallway of the Body of Hope Church at 4501 Spring Forest Road while she was on her way to the bathroom. Coffey and the girl were attending different events at the church, Investigator A. J. Doughty wrote.

Police listed a Raleigh address for Coffey when getting an arrest warrant charging him, but he was booked into the Wake County Detention Center with a home address of 1122 Old Halifax Road, Zebulon, which is in Franklin County.

“The victim was picked up by William Brandon Coffey and brought into the men’s bathroom,” Doughty said in swearing out the search warrant. Police had a witness to that, he wrote.

When he was finished with the girl, Coffey kissed her and let her go, Doughty wrote in describing what the girl told them happened.

When the girl came back to her parents, Doughty wrote, they saw that she had urinated on herself and asked what had happened.

They called police, but Coffey had left the church before officers arrived, Doughty said. He charged Coffey after questioning at a police station Wednesday.

The girl was taken to WakeMed Raleigh hospital, where workers collected a rape kit to preserve physical evidence, the warrant application said.

Coffey was being held on $1 million bail for a Thursday court appearance.

Coffey is listed on the state sex-offender database. He was charged in May 2009 in Wake County with first-degree kidnapping and taking indecent liberties and convicted in September 2010 of second-degree kidnapping and the indecent liberties charge and served consecutive sentences in state prison.

He was released on parole in January 2013, and his parole ended that September.

This story was originally published September 3, 2015 at 10:24 AM with the headline "Sex offender accused of attacking girl in Raleigh church bathroom."