Pastor accused in 2 rapes
After a woman with a history of prostitution accused a Summerville preacher of kidnapping and raping her last week, North Charleston police detectives remembered an unsolved kidnapping and sexual assault that had been reported almost a year ago.
The similarities were striking.
In the case last week, on July 27, a 20-year-old woman said she was abducted at gunpoint and raped after she accepted a ride from a man in a white pickup truck as she walked down Midland Park Road near Stall Road. The victim told police she was a prostitute, police spokesman Spencer Pryor said. Also, she has been arrested in the past by North Charleston police for prostitution, he said.
After the rape, the man drove her to a wooded area near Carolina Commerce Parkway and told her to walk into the woods, warning that he would kill her if she looked back at him.
In the case last year, on Aug. 12, a 27-year-old woman reported she had been abducted at gunpoint and raped by a man who picked her up about 7 a.m. at a gas station on Ashley Phosphate Road.
According to an incident report, the woman said she was a prostitute and that she willingly climbed into the man's white Cadillac.
He drove her to a wooded area off Carolina Commerce Parkway, where he pulled a handgun on her. He then bound her wrists with tape, put a hood over her head and took her to a mobile home where he raped her, according to the report. After the rape, he drove her back to a cul-de-sac off Carolina Commerce Parkway, told her to get out of the car and walk toward the woods without looking back.
The man police have accused of carrying out these attacks is a Christian minister.
Dale Richardson, 46, of Myrtle Way in Summerville, is in the Cannon Detention Center facing charges in both cases.
He is charged by North Charleston police with two counts of kidnapping and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. During a bond hearing on Friday for charges stemming from the July 27 assault, Charleston County Magistrate Linda Lombard set his bail at $525,000. On Wednesday, for charges stemming from the 2010 incident, Lombard doubled the bail amount, bringing the total to more than $1 million.
According to arrest warrants, the victim from last August picked Richardson out of a photo lineup on Tuesday.
A victim's advocate said the victim is still upset by what happened to her, even though it happened nearly a year ago.
In court on Friday, Richardson said he is pastor at Freedom Free Will Baptist Church in Ladson and also manages a construction company called All-Safe Industrial Services.
He has not been charged with rape by North Charleston police because in the two cases for which he has been charged thus far, the sexual assaults were alleged to have taken place in Dorchester County.
"We anticipate filing charges soon, but we are taking our time and looking at a number of old, unsolved cases that are similar," said Maj. John Garrison of the Dorchester County Sheriff's Office. "We want to make sure we have all of the victims."
Garrison said investigators are looking at a number of open cases in Dorchester County and contacting victims.
Also Wednesday, Summerville Police Capt. Jon Rogers said his agency has arrest warrants accusing Richardson of assault, kidnapping, and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, all in connection with a June 21 incident in that town. Police will serve Richardson with those warrants as soon as they can, Rogers said.
In that case, a 39-year-old woman told police she had willingly climbed into a white pickup truck around 8 a.m. on Ashley Phosphate Road near Stall Road. According to a police report, the two discussed having sex for $50 but the man turned off of Lincolnville Road into the Lakes of Summerville, then onto a dirt road, where he pulled out a handgun.
The woman told police she started crying and begging him not to kill her and she put her head between her legs. After a few minutes, the man told her to get out of the truck, the report said. The woman ran through the woods until she found a house and banged on a door to ask for help.
