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After his previous child sex abuse charge, Richard Randall seemed to do everything right.
"He falls into the small number of men who come to our agency … hungry for treatment and the support needed in changing their lives," Randall's therapist wrote in 1999, before he was sentenced for asking a 9-year-old girl to touch his genitals.
Now Randall is accused of abducting and raping a 4-year-old girl in a Sandy Deseret Industries store.
"For whatever reason, a switch flipped," said Sgt. Jon Arnold, who is heading the investigation into Tuesday's rape allegation. "I wish I knew what made these guys tick ... why he chose to be that brazen."
In jail booking documents, police wrote that the 4-year-old asked to go look at the toys in the store at 727 E. 9400 South, while her mother shopped. Her mother let the girl go to the toy aisle and went to check on her "within a few minutes," police wrote.
The girl was not there.
After searching the store, asking staff for help and paging the child, the mother knocked on the door of the men's bathroom and called out the girl's name.
"Mom! Mom!" the girl yelled from inside the locked bathroom, police wrote.
The mother told the girl to open the door, but the girl replied, "I can't." The girl later told police that Randall was on top of her, investigators wrote.
The mother continued pounding on the door until Randall opened it. The mother tried to grab Randall, but he struggled and escaped, running out of the store.
Three men in the store chased Randall and tackled him in the parking lot of a nearby Taco Time, police wrote. He was booked into jail on suspicion of rape of a child, aggravated sexual abuse of a child and aggravated kidnapping.
Randall, 41, of Midvale, has not been charged with a sex crime since he pleaded guilty in 1999 to attempted sexual abuse of the 9-year-old, a 3rd-degree felony that was reduced from his initial charge of 2nd-degree felony sexual abuse of a child.
Court documents indicate he was reported then to be a model recovering offender.
"I was impressed with his apparent honesty, self understanding and motivation for treatment," Randall's therapist wrote before his sentencing. "He takes full responsibility not only for his offense, but for the sexual obsession that led to his offense. He is aware of his attraction to children but is ... committed to making the changes that he needs to ... refocus his sexuality upon his adult interests."
Randall avoided his suspended 5-year prison sentence by serving 90 days in jail without incident, meeting every term of his 3-year probation and completing classes in victim empathy, assault cycle, interpersonal relationships, sex education, "thinking errors" and anger management and assertiveness, his attorney, Mark Moffat wrote.
Randall holds a bachelor's degree in Spanish and an associate's degree in business management, Moffat wrote in a 2003 request to reduce Randall's conviction to a misdemeanor because the felony was deterring employers — a request that prosecutors stipulated and a judge granted.
The allegations of Randall's audacious attack Tuesday left some Deseret Industries customers on edge.
"It makes you wary," said Evets Wood of Riverton. "My son always wants to go straight to the toy section."
Wood said she accompanies her son, but it's hard to tell which other children — or adults — to keep an eye on.
"There are always kids playing with the toys," she said. "Parents are usually hovering close by ... but I don't know which kid is with which parent."
Linda Lundberg, of Wellsville, said she visits DI stores daily along the Wasatch Front to shop for items that she resells on eBay.
The toy section is a known kid-zone in every store, Lund- gren said. Unlike big box retail stores, where new toys are boxed or packaged in plastic, DI has an array of unwrapped, secondhand toys in arms reach, ready to be played with.
"Kids have the game 'Mousetrap' out, and they're all set up, playing it on the floor," Lundgren said.
Lundgren once saw a woman drop off two kindergarten-age children in the toy aisle at the Logan store, telling them she'd return in an hour.
"I saw her go out to the parking lot and drive off," Lundgren said. "I think because it's run by the [LDS] church, they think their kids are safe there. You just don't see it at other stores."
Clerks at the Sandy store referred questions to LDS Church spokesman Scott Trotter, who declined to comment on the store's security provisions. A sign on the door alerts shoppers that "Deseret Industries maintains a safe environment through police surveillance," but Trotter would not say what that surveillance entails.
Trotter also would not comment on whether DI staff has any plans to manage its toy aisles differently, such as forbidding extended play there, posting signs or setting up a separate, supervised play area.
Arnold, who heads sex crime investigations for Sandy police, acknowledged that child sex offenders are drawn to any place where children are known to linger, whether it's a store, a restaurant or a park. But Tuesday's alleged attack was the first abduction or sex crime reported at the Sandy DI store, Arnold said.
"This family was at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person nearby," Arnold said.
He also noted that child predators are more likely to pursue children they know personally, grooming victims over the long term, than they are to snatch strangers in broad daylight.
"It's far more rare to have this type of action," Arnold said.
A rape suspect's history of crime and atonement
1998 • Richard Randall is charged with sexually abusing a 9-year-old.
1999 • He pleads guilty to a reduced felony charge and reportedly embraces counseling for sexual deviancy.
2003 • His conviction is reduced to a misdemeanor after completion of his jail sentence, probation and therapy.