An 11-year-old girl was raped and nearly murdered in Graysville Wednesday night, and police have charged a local man in the attack.

The girl's parents contacted police shortly before 9:30 p.m. Wednesday when their daughter didn't show up for her 9 p.m. curfew at their Graysville home. With family, friends, and officers from the Graysville Police Department and Rhea County Sheriff's Department combing the town, the little girl finally made her way home just before 10 p.m.

The girl's clothes were dirty, she had bumps, bruises and abrasions on her arms and head and she had a rope burn around her neck. She told officers a man she knew as "Jesse" had raped her and tried to kill her in the woods behind the Graysville Seventh-day Adventist School, according to Chief Deputy Charles Byrd, who investigates crimes against children for the county.

After the girl was taken to Rhea Medical Center for treatment of her injuries and to take samples for a rape test kit, the girl gave officers a full description of what occurred.

She was riding her bike in Graysville around 8 p.m. when a young man rode up alongside her on his own bicycle, and the two of them rode together for a while, she said.

Police now know that the bike was stolen Wednesday evening just before the attack, Byrd said.

Deputy Ronnie Janow reported seeing the man and the girl together at about 8:30 p.m. and said the girl waved to him.

As they rode by the school on Dayton Avenue, the man told the girl he had lost a skateboard in the woods and asked for her help in finding it. After luring her into the woods, the man stuffed a paper towel in the girl's mouth and proceeded to rape her. Afterward, he beat her with his fists and twisted her neck, the girl told investigators.

The man then took a length of cord out of his pocket, wrapped it around her neck and attempted to strangle her. The girl played dead until he removed the cord, according to Byrd.

"Then she asked him to let her say a prayer before he killed her," Byrd said. "He told her he was going to kill her, and she believed him. She is a very brave little girl."

The girl was somehow able to convince the man that she wouldn't tell anyone what had happened. He took her further into the woods and forced her to wash herself off in a mud puddle, then took her back to town, Byrd said.

Equipped with the girl's description of her attacker, the name "Jesse" and the information that the girl had seen the man walking around town before with his wife and young child, investigators quickly narrowed the search.

Just over an hour after the girl returned home, officers picked up Jesse Arnold Jordan, 20, at his home on Bridge Street.

Jordan, who is on probation for pulling a knife on Graysville Police Chief Walt Kaylor and Rhea County Deputy Jim Walker earlier this year, at first protested his innocence and tried to get his wife to say he had been at home at the time of the attack. After investigators showed the wife photos of the girl's injuries, she refused to provide her husband with an alibi, Byrd said.

Jordan then admitted he had been with the girl and hit her, but denied raping her or attempting to kill her.

Byrd arrested Jordan and charged him with aggravated rape of a child and attempted murder. He is being held at the Rhea County Jail pending payment of a $250,000 bond.

John Carpenter can be reached at jcarpenter@xtn.net.