A convicted pedophile who kidnapped and sexually assaulted his friend’s five-year-old daughter could be released from prison due to a recent California law change, despite being sentenced to 350 years in jail.
Charles William Mix was 47 when he committed the horrible 2003 crime, smuggling the young girl hundreds of miles away from her family’s home in Riverside, California, to Utah in a stolen vehicle before committing gruesome acts.
Mix was living with the girl, her father, and her sister and was extremely close to the family at the time, according to the Los Angeles Times.
He was arrested less than 12 hours later after a passerby reported seeing him, but he had already molested the victim and took explicit photographs of her.
“She’d fight me, but I’d persist,” he told Riverside police, referring to when he would undress the victim. “She wasn’t used to it.”
Mix was convicted of a host of felonies, including willful child cruelty, kidnapping to commit robbery or rape, lewd acts with a child under 14, and burglary.
Though the victim’s family had rested knowing that her abuser would spend the rest of his life behind bars, Mix could be paroled as part of California’s Elderly Parole Program, which was modified in 2021 to lower the age of eligibility to 50 years.
Convicts also must have served 20 years or more of continuous incarceration to qualify — Mix now meets both requirements.
While the victim, who is now 27, has not spoken up about the horrific trauma she endured at Mix’s hands, her family is begging authorities to keep the pedophile incarcerated.
“I’m writing to request — no, to implore — that you deny parole for the above referenced inmate, who 20 years ago was sentenced to 350 years-to-life in prison for sexually molesting a 5-year-old girl,” the woman’s relatives wrote in a letter to the parole board.
The devastated family went on to say that Mix was “old enough to be her grandfather, and certainly old enough to know exactly what he was doing.”
“Not only did he steal her innocence and the inviolability of her home (where all children should feel safe), but he actually tried to steal her away from her family,” the letter continued. “He professed his romantic ‘love’ for her in myriad love letters and claimed that his feelings were reciprocated — BY A 5-YEAR-OLD.”
When Riverside County Superior Court Judge Christian F. Thierbach presided over Mix’s trial, he told Mix that “the human race has yet to create a punishment that adequately addresses what you did to this little girl, and I suspect one reason for that is what you did to her is inhuman.”
Thierbach went on to say, “I dare say if that happens, civilization as we know it will have ceased to exist.”
The victim’s family wrote that they could not agree more with that assessment.
Claira Stansbury, the victim’s sister, told KTLA last week that she is still impacted by Mix’s terrible crimes.
“She has to deal with this for the rest of her life and she has to learn to cope with what happened to her for the rest of her life,” she said, explaining that a “lot of trauma has been reopened” due to the prospect of Mix being released.
“The legislators all want to talk about how terrible life sentences are for this criminal, these types of criminals, I don’t think they’re actually looking at life sentences of the victims who didn’t have a choice in this,” Stansbury continued. “I absolutely think that he would offend again, whether it be going to find my sister or another innocent child.”
The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office released a statement to the outlet, voicing their support for victims:
Our office stands firmly with the victims who must attend parole hearings to keep dangerous felons in prison. It is appalling that the state continues to put victims and their families through further trauma, forcing them to fight for the sentences that have already been handed down by a court of law. This practice compels victims to relive their devastating experiences. We have a team of dedicated attorneys and victim specialists fighting against the early release of dangerous felons. Our office is committed to protecting victims and seeing that this practice of early parole is put to an end.
Mix’s victim’s family has also asked the public to send letters on their behalf to the parole board to block the kidnapper’s hopes of being released.