LADSON, S.C. — Dale Richardson who for the past year had served as pastor at Freedom Free Will Baptist Church has been charged with kidnapping and raping three women at gunpoint and kidnapping a fourth who was not sexually assaulted.
According to an incident report, last month Richardson picked up a woman and gave her a ride. When the 20-year-old tried to get out of the car, Richardson allegedly pulled a gun, bound her hands, covered her head and took her to the gray-blue trailer home behind the church.
The report said he later dropped the woman in a wooded area, threatening to shoot her if she turned around. Police said the woman identified Richardson from his picture on the church website.
Richardson has since been charged with two other similar sexual assaults, both of which occurred last year. The third woman claims she was raped in a wooded area outside nearby Summerville, 20 miles northwest of Charleston. He is also charged with kidnapping a fourth woman.
Thirsty boy stuck in chimney trying to get drink
WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — An 8-year-old boy desperate for a drink tried to get into a neighbor’s home by sliding down the chimney, but got stuck for more than four hours, authorities said.
West Valley City police Sgt. Robert Hamilton said the thirsty boy climbed a tree Friday to get onto the home’s roof, then slid down the chimney feet first. The boy made it 30 feet down the chimney before he became wedged between the basement and main floor.
Hamilton said the boy, who lives several blocks away, recently had been in the house for a play date with a grandchild visiting the family who lives there. The family, who had gone out to dinner, returned home to hear a boy crying in the chimney, Hamilton told the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News.
Rescuers cut a hole in a wall to free the boy, who escaped with little more than scrapes and bruises.
Families maintain hope Iran will release hikers
TEHRAN, Iran — Relatives of two American men who received eight-year prison sentences for spying after being arrested more than two years ago in Iran, remain hopeful the men will eventually be released.
Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were sentenced Saturday to three years for illegal entry into Iran and five years for spying for the United States. The two were arrested in July 2009 near the Iraq-Iran border along with a third American, Sarah Shourd, who was released in September on $500,000 bail and returned to the U.S. All three deny the charges, saying they were only hiking near the ill-defined border.
In a statement Sunday, the families said they still hoped the two would be released, based on remarks from Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi. He said earlier this month that he hoped “the trial of the two American defendants who were detained for the crime of illegally entering Iran will finally lead to their freedom.”
The families hope that meant the men would be set free during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when pardons are traditionally handed down.
Unlikely coincidence helps plane crash survivors
RESOLUTE BAY, Nunavut — A Boeing 737-200 passenger jet slammed into a hill in Canada’s remote Arctic region Saturday, killing 12 people.
First Air charter flight 6560 crashed Saturday afternoon in foggy weather as it was approaching the airport near the tiny hamlet of Resolute Bay in the Arctic territory of Nunavut.
In an unlikely coincidence, several hundred military personnel were in the region preparing for a mock airliner crash training exercise. Within minutes military helicopters were landing at the crash site to evacuate the three survivors.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Angelique Dignard said a 7-year-old girl and a 48-year-old man were transported to a hospital in Ottawa from a medical facility in the Nunavut territorial capital of Iqaluit. A 23-year-old woman remains in a hospital in Iqaluit.
Dignard said all three were listed in stable condition Sunday.