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Abduction Case Details Given: MESSAGES, CALLS BETWEEN MAN, GIRL DESCRIBED

Posted on: Saturday, 28 January 2006, 12:00 CST

By Marc Zarefsky and Andy Mead, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

Jan. 28--WINCHESTER -- A 14-year-old Arkansas girl found alone in a Mount Sterling hotel room Tuesday evening received several cell phones and at least one prior visit from a Winchester man charged with taking her across state lines, court documents say.

Charles Ray Wise, 38, had used telephones and the Internet to communicate with the girl -- identified in court documents only as Rachael -- since November, according to a sworn statement by an FBI agent. Wise sent the girl online greeting cards and text messages that said things such as "Love you, I miss you," the document said.

Those and other new details emerged in the case yesterday as the FBI said it was trying to determine whether other minors had been affected.

According to an FBI agent's affidavit filed in federal court, the girl's grandmother in Jonesboro, Ark., awoke the morning of Jan. 21 to find that her granddaughter was gone.

Authorities say Wise brought the girl to Kentucky, where, with the help of Clarence Daniel Dunn, 51, a convicted sex offender, he put her in a room at a Days Inn.

As Winchester police questioned Wise later Jan. 21, the agency received a 911 call, apparently from one of the cell phones Wise had given the girl. The call was a hang-up, but came from somewhere in Winchester.

After repeated questioning, Wise told authorities Tuesday that the girl was at the Mount Sterling motel.

The agent's statement said the girl, in an emotional interview, told the FBI that Wise "had spoken with her about sexual matters" on the trip from Arkansas to Kentucky. At the motel, she said, he tried to have sex with her, but she refused, and pleaded with him "to wait until she was old enough and married."

Although they didn't have sex, Wise fondled the girl, the statement said.

Wise, a former Clark County deputy sheriff, was arrested on a federal charge of taking a minor across a state line for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity. He is in the Fayette County Detention Center.

Dunn was arrested on a state charge of custodial interference and knowingly aiding and abetting. He is in the Clark County jail and is also expected to face federal charges.

Wise is a locksmith who lives in the back of his shop on East Broadway in Winchester.

Three women who said they knew him well were standing near the shop yesterday afternoon, talking about their shock at his arrest. They said he is divorced and has two children -- a boy, 10, and a girl, about 13, who live with him.

"He was great with children," said Frances Burgess, who lives next to Wise and has known him for 20 years.

Bob "Birdman" Hicks, who runs a barber shop on the other side of the locksmith shop, also spoke well of Wise.

"I figured he was just like me -- he worked, he took care of his kids," Hicks said.

A couple of blocks away, at the South Main Street apartment where Dunn lived, neighbors described him as a quiet man who kept to himself.

"We never heard him get loud," Darley King said. "He was a good neighbor, I guess."

King's wife, Janice, said a young girl lived with Dunn. The girl was about 3 or 4 years old, she said, and Dunn said she was his daughter.

Dunn was convicted in 1993 of second-degree rape for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in Lexington.

A year later, while in jail, he wrote to a judge seeking early parole. In that letter, he said he had eight children.

He also said he had found religion in prison, and followed his signature with Galatians 2:20, a Bible verse that begins "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."

When he moved into the Main Street apartment last August, Dunn said he worked for Wise, and listed the locksmith shop on Broadway as his previous address, according to rent documents.

Last night in Jonesboro, the girl's mother released a statement in which she said she became concerned when her daughter's personality changed and the girl became secretive. She said she monitored her daughter, called police and warned the girl of the danger.

"Because children can be so innocent, they can and are easily fooled by these types of predators," the statement said.

According to court records, the girl's mother called Jonesboro police, and told them that last November she had noticed a large number of calls to Winchester from her daughter's cell phone. The mother said she called the Winchester number and spoke with Wise, who said the girl had been communicating with his 13-year-old daughter, according to the affidavit. When confronted, the girl said the same thing, but her mother took the phone.

Sometime later, the mother found her daughter with another cell phone, which the girl claimed was borrowed from a friend. The two got into an argument, during which the phone was broken. Her mother later discovered another cell phone, which was confiscated.

The mother also found an envelope bearing Wise's return address hidden in a musical instrument, court records say. The envelope included a cell phone box and a note that said "I love you more than ever, I am waiting for you," according to the FBI statement. A search of the computer to which the girl had access found an online greeting card that said, "I love you, I miss you."

The girl's mother took her to her grandmother's house near the Jonesboro city limits in an attempt to end the communications. On the night of Jan. 20, the girl told her grandmother she was going to sleep at 7:30 p.m. Her grandmother went to bed around 10 p.m., and discovered the girl was missing the next morning.

Jonesboro police found three notes in the girl's handwriting saying she left voluntarily.

A cell phone was found in a trash can at the grandmother's house. It had text messages from Wise's number.

After the phone's voice mail was activated, a voice message was retrieved. The message, according to the statement: "Rachael, this is Charles. Sorry about the phone being dead. Love you, see you tonight."

Stan Mitchell of the Jonesboro (Ark.) Sun contributed to this article.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

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Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.)

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