An FBI agent investigating the unsolved slayings of three Spotsylvania County girls traveled to Oregon this week to study the high-profile disappearances of two teen-agers there.

"I just got off the phone with him and he's going over the cases out there right now," Spotsylvania sheriff's Maj. Howard Smith said yesterday afternoon. "We're looking at this as a lead in our case, just like any other lead."

Two 13-year-old girls have vanished from the same apartment complex in Oregon City since Jan. 9. FBI agents suspect the same man abducted both, agency spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele said.

The girls, Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis, attended the same middle school and were members of the dance team.

Each girl was last seen by her mother during early morning preparations for school. Ashley disappeared Jan. 9 and Miranda vanished March 8.

The cases bear similarities to the abductions and slayings of Sofia Silva and Kristin and Kati Lisk. All three vanished from in front of their homes after school.

Silva, 16, was found dead in King George County on Oct. 9, 1996. The bodies of 15-year-old Kristin Lisk and 12-year-old Kati Lisk were found snagged to a tree in the South Anna River on May 5, 1997--five days after they disappeared.

"We're sharing information through the FBI and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children," Smith said. "It doesn't appear on the surface that these cases are related, but we're looking at them closely just to make sure."

Agents with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit in North Stafford have gone to Oregon to assist with the investigation.

The agents, commonly referred to as profilers, will be evaluating information gathered to date in hopes of aiding local investigators, said Beth Anne Steele, spokeswoman in the FBI's Portland Field Office.

"There's not a lot of evidence. There's not a crime scene," she said. "We're not sure what we're going to get, but we're hopeful."

Smith said he hopes Oregon City isn't about to go through the same kind of anguish Spotsylvania County did five years ago.

"It's the biggest fear of any investigator who has worked on this case, that we won't be able to catch this person before he does it again," Smith said.

"As bad as it is for this community, it's happening every day across the country. People are preying on our children."

Staff writer Pamela Gould contributed to this story.

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