Molestation Trial Opens in Riverside

The trial of a Riverside man accused of abducting and molesting a 5-year-old girl opened Thursday with the prosecution showing jurors sexually explicit photos he allegedly took of the girl and the letters he wrote about his sexual feelings toward her.

Charles William Mix, 49, who lived with the girl, her sister and their father in their Riverside home, allegedly took the 5-year-old from her bedroom about 5 a.m. June 2, 2003. He was arrested less than 12 hours later in Utah after a passerby reported seeing him and the girl.

“You’ll see details of every crime, and [Mix] is guilty of all of them,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Allison Nelson said.

Mix, who worked as an airplane mechanic at Chino Airport, faces a life sentence without parole if convicted of child stealing, kidnapping for the purpose of committing rape, willful harm or injury to a child and 22 lewd acts with force, violence and duress.

Defense attorney Mark Petersen said Mix took the girl because he was deeply troubled by the parenting skills of the girl’s father, and that the district attorney has excessively charged his client.

Petersen said the evidence “in its entire context” will show Mix “clearly did not take [the girl] for purposes of robbery, rape or oral copulation. .... I will ask you to consider lesser charges.”

During the prosecution’s opening statement in Riverside Superior Court, Nelson showed the jury sexual pictures Mix allegedly took of the girl and others, Nelson said, that Mix had ordered her to take of him. She also displayed objects Mix is accused of using to molest the alleged victim.

The jury also saw portions of a videotaped police interview taken by Utah authorities in which Mix told them he slept in the nude with the girl. Nelson also read transcripts of a later interview with Riverside police, during which Mix said he told the girl it was fine for them to have secrets, and that she “doesn’t have to tell her daddy everything.”

Nelson said Mix told police he would undress the girl in bed. “She’d fight me, but I’d persist,” he told Riverside police. When asked why she fought, Mix explained, “She wasn’t used to it,” Nelson said.

The girl, now 6, took the stand briefly but was unable to testify because she was too upset.

The girl’s appearance followed the testimony of her sister and her father.

Her father testified that he met Mix in 1999 as the result of an ad each had placed looking for bandmates. He said he quit the band in 2000 but reunited with Mix in early 2002, saying they became friends and Mix would be a baby-sitter for his girls. Mix took the girls to amusement parks and malls. The girls also slept at Mix’s home in Fontana, the father and the girl’s sister said.

“Why did you allow that?” Nelson asked. “Because he [Mix] was my friend, the kids liked to do those things, and I worked late,” said the father.

Last April, with Mix and the girl’s father looking to save money on rent, Mix moved into the father’s home in Riverside.

On the day the girl went missing, Mix left behind two letters, one saying he disapproved of the father’s parenting and another with instructions on how to feed his pet macaw.