OAN Staff James Meyers
10:18 AM – Monday, August 26, 2024
A pedophile who was sentenced to 350 years in prison for abducting and molesting his friend’s 5-year-old daughter could be freed soon due to a woke California law.
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Charles William Mix was expected to die in prison behind bars for kidnapping his roommate’s daughter and smuggling her over state lines into Utah in 2003, KABC reported.
“He befriended her father, gained everybody’s trust, groomed her, and then he stole a child out of her own home,” said the victim’s sister, Claira Stansbury, who was just 9 when her younger sibling was taken.
Mix could be freed under California’s progressive Elderly Parole program, which protects elderly convicts, even those responsible for such heinous crimes.
Despite the pedophile being only 49 at the time of the crime, he is currently 69, which makes him eligible for the soft-on-crime program that refers inmates over the age of 50 who have served 20 years of continuous incarceration to the board of parole hearings.
Meanwhile, the victim, who is now 27, is still too traumatized to speak about the tragedy, with news of her attacker’s possible release triggering new pain for her and her family, according to her sister.
“We had moved on from it,” Stansbury told KABC. “We were healing from it, and now we have to dive back into it to try to continue to keep him in prison.”
The victim’s family is calling for officials to keep Mix behind bars, claiming that the victims should be the priority, not the criminals.
“California’s legislatures are concerned with these criminals having life sentences and how is that fair to them,” said Stansbury. “What really needs to be talked about is the life sentences of the victims that they didn’t have a choice in.”
Stansbury’s sister was only five when she was abducted from her home in Riverside, California, on June 2nd, 2003, triggering an Amber Alert, which helped locate her the following day hundreds of miles away in Richfield, Utah.
During the investigation, authorities discovered sexually explicit photos of the girl and love letters written by Mix, who eventually confessed to sleeping naked next to the girl.
As a result, Mix was sentenced to 350 years in prison after being convicted on a variety of charges including willful child cruelty, kidnapping to commit robbery or rape and lewd acts with a child under 14.
Meanwhile, Stansbury plans to speak before the Board of Parole Hearings on her sister’s behalf.
“She’s tried a couple of times to speak to people about it, and she says, ‘It’s harder than I thought it was. I am just not ready yet, but please, I need you to do it,’” said Stansbury.
The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, who is also fighting the early release of Mix, spoke out against the decision, calling it “appalling.”
“Our office stands firmly with the victims who must attend parole hearings to keep dangerous felons in prison,” the DA’s office said.
“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 parole hearing is scheduled for September 25th.
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