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After 5 Years, 7 Are Charged in Death of Girl Who Vanished By THOMAS J. LUECK

Nearly five years after a 13-year-old girl from New Milford, Conn., disappeared, the authorities yesterday announced the arrests of four men and three women in what they described as a horrific case of kidnapping, sexual assault and murder.

At a news conference in Litchfield, Conn., law enforcement officials said one other suspect was being sought in the case and was believed to be in Texas.

The arrests were the culmination of what the police said was an intricate, often frustrating investigation into the death of Maryann Measles, a middle school student who was last seen by her family in a New Milford shopping center parking lot on Oct. 19, 1997. Her body was found nine months later in a nearby lake.

Since then, as residents of New Milford, a picturesque town in Litchfield County, have puzzled over the case, the police have sorted through testimony from hundreds of witnesses, pursuing leads that the girl had been taken to a remote area, raped and killed by a group of young people.

"The information came not like a faucet but in dribs and drabs," Frank Maco, the state attorney for Litchfield County, said yesterday at the news conference in Litchfield.

He declined to describe the evidence, or to provide details on the sequence of events that led to Maryann's death. The seven people arrested, all in their 20's, included two men charged with capital felony murder, punishable by death under Connecticut law.

"There are no words in the English language to express how happy my family and I feel," said Cindi Measles, the victim's mother, who attended yesterday's news conference.

"To think it has taken five years, but they didn't get away with it," she said. She told reporters, "I know every one" of those who were arrested.

Investigators had faced a deadline under Connecticut's five-year statute of limitations. Although the statute does not apply to murder prosecutions, it would have precluded other charges, including kidnapping and sexual assault, that were announced yesterday.

The two men facing capital murder charges were identified as Alan M. Walter, 24, of New Milford, and Deaneric Dupas, 27, of Waterbury. Both were being held on $2 million bonds, the police said.

Both investigators and family members have described Maryann as a popular but troubled girl who ran away from home for brief periods and had a reputation for associating with older boys.

Only days before her disappearance, Maryann accused Mr. Walter of statutory rape in a written statement to the police.

Another man under arrest yesterday, Keith Foster, 26, of New Milford, had also been accused of statutory rape by the girl, in statements to the police.

The Hartford Courant reported last week that investigators believed Maryann had been taken to a remote spot along the Housatonic River by a group of 7 to 10 men and women, gang-raped by some of the men as the women watched, wrapped in a blanket and chains and dumped into the river.

According to an unnamed source quoted by the newspaper, the investigators believed the motive in the killing was twofold. For the men, it was to silence a girl who had threatened them with statutory rape charges. For the women, it was revenge for her having had sex with some of their boyfriends, the newspaper reported.