Charges pending against man accused of rape at Deseret Industries

SANDY — Police say they could screen the case of a man accused of kidnapping and raping a 4-year-old girl inside a Deseret Industries thrift store with the District Attorney's Office as early as today.

Richard Chad Randall, 41, a convicted sex offender, was arrested Tuesday afternoon after customers inside the D.I. store at 727 E. 9400 South, chased him down, tackled him and held him until police arrived.

Disturbing new details about the alleged attack were outlined in a Salt Lake County Jail report released Wednesday.

A mother and her 4-year-old daughter entered the store just after 1 p.m., and the daughter asked if she could look at the toys, said Sandy Police Sgt. Troy Arnold. The mother turned her back on the child for just a couple of minutes. But when she looked again, her daughter was gone.

Detectives were still putting together a timeline Wednesday of how long the mother and her daughter were in the store before the alleged abduction happened and how long Randall was in the store. Arnold said Wednesday he did not know if store surveillance captured the alleged incident. He also did not know Wednesday if Randall grabbed the toddler forcefully or lured her away.

After the mother told store employees her daughter was missing and an announcement was made on the store intercom, the mother checked the men's and women's bathrooms. When she discovered the men's bathroom was either locked or blocked, she called out her daughter's name to see if she was inside, according to jail records.

"Her daughter called out, 'Mom, Mom,' " jail records state. The mother told her daughter to open the door, and she replied, "I can't," according to jail records.

The mother continued to pound on the door until it opened and Randall stepped out.

The mother "asked Richard to tell her what he was doing with her daughter," jail records stated. She then grabbed onto the man, but he broke away from her and ran toward the door.

"She screams, 'Help, help, help.' The customers see him running through the store and out the front door," Arnold said.

Randall ran across 9400 South. Three customers pursued and tackled him in the parking lot of Taco Time, according to jail records. Sandy police arrived a short time later and took Randall into custody.

Police interviewed the girl who told them how Randall attacked her, according to jail records. Randall refused to talk to police without an attorney. He was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of rape of a child, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual abuse of a child.

"It's an incredibly brazen crime," Arnold said. "You're in a store where there's a lot of people in the middle of the day. We're fortunate the citizens heard the mom scream for help."

In 1999, Randall was convicted of attempted sex abuse of a child, a crime that was reduced from a second-degree felony to a class A misdemeanor. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

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