New info this week (article from Lancaster online)
New charges for Manheim Township charged in the 1997 sexual assault of 2 children
Eric Dorwart
Pennsylvania State Police have filed additional sex-crime charges against a Manheim Township man after determining some of his crimes took place at his house in Lancaster County, according to police.
It’s the third set of charges filed against Eric Dorwart stemming from DNA evidence linking him to the 1997 sexual assault of two children in Leacock Township when he was 28, according to investigators.
When police arrested Dorwart last August in the 1997 assaults, they also searched two computers and an iPhone on which they found more than 2,000 images of either child *advertiser censored* or associated erotica according to charging documents.
Investigators have been trying to identify victims in the photos who may have been babysat by his family. Dorwart is the father of two daughters.
According to the most recent charging documents, some sexual activity photographed shows Dorwart with a child’s foot in his mouth and licking the foot, which has toenails painted yellow, indicating the child is likely a girl.
Part of a shirt Dorwart is photographed wearing elsewhere is seen in the images, and a blanket in his living room is also in the picture — meaning investigators could establish that the assault took place in the county — according to the documents.
The latest charges, filed July 11, include indecent assault and unlawful contact with a minor.
Dorwart is also charged with child rape, child *advertiser censored* and related crimes based on the photos police said they found on his computers and phone.
In the 1997 case, he was charged with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault and corruption of minors.
In that case, according to prosecutors, a man driving a van stopped along West Newport Road near Scenic Road in Leacock Township on April 4, 1997, got out and sexually assaulted a 7-year-old girl and 5-year-old boy. He got back in his van and drove off.
The girl told her parents, who called the police. Officers collected the attacker’s DNA evidence: semen from the girl’s underwear and dress.
The DNA had been entered into a federal database of post-conviction DNA samples, but yielded no match.
Charging documents do not specify how police zeroed in on Dorwart other than to say “through investigative means.”
But the documents say that in May 2023, police went to Dorwart’s house on Pleasure Road and
recovered a Rutter’s cup from the trash can from which they obtained a DNA sample. Testing on that sample matched samples taken from the girl’s underwear and dress, charging documents said.
Dorwart has been free since posting $250,000 bail in January. His attorney declined comment.
