A Botetourt County sheriff's deputy accused of causing a scare by barging into the bedroom of a 10-year-old girl in the middle of the night now faces an investigation by the Virginia State Police.

Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom said Monday he asked state police to investigate the incident, which first became public last week in a federal lawsuit filed against the sheriff's office by Mark and Cheryl Hunsberger.

The lawsuit accuses Deputy J.A. Wood and a second unidentified man of entering the Hunsberger home near Cloverdale the night of Feb. 1 without a search warrant. The Hunsbergers' daughter was terrified to find Wood shining a flashlight in her bedroom while the second man tried to pull the covers off her bed, the suit claims.

Sheriff Ronnie Sprinkle said last week that his deputy had a legitimate reason to be in the home, but he declined to elaborate.

Although the sheriff's office is conducting an internal investigation, Branscom said he thought it best to bring in state police. One reason for that, he said, is that some allegations in the lawsuit are inconsistent with his understanding from the sheriff's office as to what happened.

"While I have confidence in the ability of this Sheriff's department to investigate itself, I believe that public confidence in the Sheriff's department will be best served by an independent investigation of the incident," Branscom said in a written statement.

Sprinkle again declined to comment Monday. But Branscom noted that the sheriff "welcomes the investigation and assures full cooperation."

Branscom also made it clear that scrutiny will extend beyond the sheriff's office. He said he hopes state police will determine within a week or two "whether a criminal violation was committed by any of the involved parties."

Although a $10 million lawsuit filed by the Hunsbergers makes sweeping allegations of police misconduct, a criminal justice professor at Radford University cautioned that "there are things that we just don't know."

"We shouldn't prejudge the police or the police procedures until we know all the facts," Tod Burke said.

Generally speaking, police must obtain a search warrant before they enter a home or search a vehicle without the owner's consent. There are, however, exceptions. Among the ones cited by Burke: seizure of evidence within plain view, evidence seized within arm's reach immediately after an arrest, pat-downs of a suspect believed to be armed, and various "exigent circumstances," which could include a threat to a police officer's or citizen's safety.

With so little known about what happened in the Hunsberger home, Burke declined to speculate on whether one of the exceptions applied.

The lawsuit accuses Wood and a second man whose identity is unknown to the Hunsbergers of trespassing and violating their constitutional rights. According to the lawsuit, Wood let himself into the unlocked home after no one answered his knocks on the door.

About 1:15 a.m., the Hunsbergers were awakened by the screams of their 10-year-old daughter. After rushing to her bedroom, they found Wood dressed in a sheriff's deputy uniform shining a flashlight into the bedroom while the second man, who was not in uniform, tried to pull the covers from their daughter's bed, according to the lawsuit.

The Hunsbergers say they have yet to receive an explanation from the sheriff's office. While Sprinkle has said there is another side to the story, both he and Branscom declined to discuss details of the case.

Roanoke attorney Terry Grimes, who filed the lawsuit, has offered one possible explanation for the search, although he stressed that he has no solid information on which to base it.

According to that theory, a man -- possibly the one who accompanied Wood into the home -- had called authorities earlier in the night after his 16-year-old daughter did not come home on time. The man and Wood then entered the home to look for the girl. But it remained unclear under that theory why they believed she was in the Hunsberger home.