Man in Molest Case Gets Prison

A Riverside man who kidnapped and sexually molested his roommate’s 5-year-old daughter, prompting an Amber Alert and his subsequent capture in Utah, was sentenced to 350 years to life in state prison Thursday.

Charles William Mix, 49, who also took sexually explicit photographs of the girl, was convicted last month of kidnapping for the purpose of committing rape, burglary and lewd acts with force, violence or duress.

“Mr. Mix, 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,” Riverside County Superior Court Judge Christian F. “Rick” Thierbach said before handing down the sentence. “I am going to do everything I can to virtually guarantee that you will never see the light of day outside a prison yard for the rest of your life.”

Mix abducted the girl June 2 from a Riverside home he shared with the girl’s father. Hours later, with an Amber Alert in effect, Mix and the girl were spotted having a fast-food lunch outside a Mormon church in Richfield, Utah.

Utah police who arrested Mix found the explicit photos of the girl in his vehicle, which had been reported stolen from Chino Airport. He later told Riverside police detectives that he molested the girl.

When he abducted the girl, Mix left a note for the girl’s father saying that he disapproved of his parenting skills. Mix also left instructions on how to feed his pet macaw.

At Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Carl Schull, who said he had known Mix for 14 years and had occasionally employed him, told the judge he didn’t believe Mix was a bad person at heart.

“I believe he thought he was doing the right thing by getting this young girl out of a bad home environment,” Schull said. “He wanted to be a father figure. While I do not condone the photographs that he took, they were, in his words, more of a ‘morbid curiosity.’ ”

On prompting from the judge, however, Schull acknowledged that he hadn’t seen the photographs.

Allison Nelson, the Riverside County supervising deputy district attorney who handled Mix’s case, said the sentence was the stiffest she’d seen in her 20-year career: “Justifiably so. There’s no way to undo this damage to the little girl, but there was a way to put this man away for life.”

The girl’s parents urged the judge to avoid leniency.

“This man has committed one of the worst crimes a man can commit,” the victim’s father said. “I believe it would only be fair for him to receive the worst punishment a man can get.”

Thierbach told Mix that the only way he would be freed from prison was if he received a pardon.

“I dare say,” the judge said, “if that happens, civilization as we know it will have ceased to exist.”