By Mark LaFlamme,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – A 57-year-old Farmingdale man was captured in Georgia on Tuesday and arrested on 19 counts of molesting young girls.

Bruce Tuttle, father of a convicted killer from Lewiston, was arrested at a construction site in Peachtree City, Ga., as he began a new job there, police said. Investigators said he had altered his appearance and that he was using the name of a dead relative.

Police said Tuttle had worked for the past three years as a mechanic in Auburn. In March, he failed to show up at a court hearing in New Hampshire, where he was accused of sexually molesting two young girls over a six-year period.

Maine State Police and agents from the Central Maine Violent Crime Task Force got involved in the search last month after they learned that Tuttle had been living in Farmingdale.

This week, task force investigators uncovered information that Tuttle may have fled New England and that he was preparing to go to work in the area of Locust Grove, Ga.

Agents passed that information to police in New Hampshire who were trying to get Tuttle back to face sexual assault charges in Strafford County. Police there notified the U.S. Marshal’s Service, which sent agents from its Fugitive Task Force to Peachtree City, a town of about 7,000 just south of Atlanta.

Tuttle was found at the job site and arrested without incident. In New Hampshire, police held a press conference to announce his capture. In Maine, police in several cities were expressing relief that the rape suspect was caught without incident.

“It was a big case for us,” said task force coordinator Chris Clifford. “We’re all really glad he’s been found.”

Tuttle was expected to be returned to New Hampshire for prosecution. Police say that between 1997 and 2002, Tuttle sexually assaulted two girls under the age of 13 on numerous occasions in Rochester and Strafford in New Hampshire. The charges accuse Tuttle of forcing or attempting to force the young victims to perform sex acts on him.

At the time of the alleged assaults, Tuttle was living in Rochester, police said. More recently, he was known to be living with his wife on Maine Avenue in Farmingdale.

In late March, Tuttle was not present when his son was convicted in Androscoggin County Superior Court of murder and kidnapping. A jury found 22-year-old Shaun Tuttle guilty in the death of an 81-year-old Lewiston man who was run over with his own car and stuffed into the trunk.

After Bruce Tuttle failed to appear in a New Hampshire courthouse to answer the sexual assault charges, his wife reported him missing. Police said it appeared he had left his home without credit cards, identification, money or his car. Officials believe he rode buses as he made his way south.