By Melanthia Mitchell/AP
A Cambodian American boy, snatched near his Seattle home June 20, was found the next day — gagged and bound in the bedroom of an apartment about a block away. Authorities said the boy had not been seriously harmed.
On June 26 King County prosecutors filed a charge of first-degree kidnapping against Richard Allen Dunn, 39, for the abduction of the 6-year-old boy.
Dunn is being held on $1 million bail. Arraignment is scheduled for July 6.
Dunn said although he often drinks $100 to $200 worth of alcohol a night without any effects, he blacked out the night of the abduction, according to a county police detective’s report filed in court papers. When asked about the presence of the boy in his apartment, Dunn said he did not see him.
Police asked Dunn if his prints would be found on the tape the boy was bound with. He said they “shouldn’t be,” the court papers stated.
The child said he had been struck with a belt, but there was no evidence of sexual abuse, Prosecutor Norm Maleng stated at a morning news conference. The investigation continues, he said, and additional charges are possible.
The standard sentence for the charge is four to five and one-half years in prison, with a maximum sentence of life in prison.
“We’re going to be very serious in considering an exceptional maximum sentence,” Maleng said. “Any time you have a crime committed against a child, it inflicts a terrible hurt against the child and the child’s family.”
Authorities are still trying to figure out a report from Dunn that he had served a year for molesting a child in Massachusetts, Maleng said. Media reports say the incident occurred when Dunn was 16. According to charging papers, Dunn described the Massachusetts incident as a consensual romantic affair between him and a 14-year-old boy.
At the bail hearing last week, Deputy Prosecutor Scott O’Toole also said child pornography was found in a search of the apartment where the boy was found.
Authorities also have been seeking Dunn’s partner, Brandon Dakota Walcutt, for questioning in the case. He is not considered a suspect. Walcutt also is named in a missing-persons report entered into the National Crime Information Computer system Saturday by the King County Sheriff’s Department.
The child — a son of Cambodian immigrants — was abducted last week on the evening of June 20 from a parking lot near the apartment building where he lives. Several witnesses said Dunn had asked other children at the complex to help look for his own missing son.
Detectives found the child on the night of June 21 in Dunn and Walcutt’s apartment, about a block away.
Dunn was arrested in downtown Seattle early Friday after he was seen returning to a car that had been linked to the case. |
