|
Benton Man Accused Of Raping Child |
|
|
Thursday, 22 October 2009 |
Darrin Keim, 40, of Benton, has been charged with raping a Saline County 5-year-old girl to whom he is related.
Keim was arrested in May and charged with four counts of rape against a juvenile. Keim has since been released on a $50,000 bond from the Saline County Detention Center. He was ordered to have no contact order with the victims, nor with any children under 12 years of age nor any church activities involving children.
According to authorities, the child’s mother was giving the child a bath when she asked the child if someone had told her to keep a secret. The child told her mother that Keim had asked her to keep a secret. The child said Keim had touched her in her vagina. The child’s mother did not ask any more questions because she did not want to be accused of leading the child. The mother then called the police, and the child repeated her account for sheriff’s officers at the scene.
The child was then taken to her grandparents house while investigation continued.
Keim then told the officers he needed to use the restroom and was followed to the restroom by Deputy Lance Smith of the Saline County Sheriff’s Office.
After leaving the restroom, Smith read Keim his Miranda Rights, which Keim stated he understood. Keim voluntarily told Smith that he thought this was about the time “his penis fell out of his shorts while he was giving the child a bath,” the sheriff’s report states. The deputy asked Keim what type of shorts he had on at the time of the incident, and Keim said they were homemade.
During the same conversation, Keim told Smith, the sheriff’s report states, that he and the child’s mother had not been having a lot of sex and he had to masturbate regularly. The child had walked in once while Keim was masturbating, he said. Keim told Smith that if he did put his penis into the child it would have killed her. Keim said when the child was smaller she would get constipated and have a large bowel movement. He said he would often hear her crying from the bathroom and he could not imagine causing that kind of pain to her.
Detective Tony Baugh took over the investigation once he arrived on the scene. Baugh asked the child’s mother to tell him about the events that led up to that point. She told Baugh that she has been sexually abused as a child and has always been worried that the same incident may happen to the child.
She said she often asks the child whether someone has told her to keep a secret. This time when she asked the child, the child told her that Keim had told her to keep a secret. The child’s mother asked the child what the secret was, and the child hesitated to answer. She finally told her mother that Keim had rubbed his fingers and his penis on her vagina.
The child’s mother then asked Keim about the incident, and he denied it, the sheriff’s report states. The child’s mother and Keim began to argue, and he eventually admitted to committing the act, she told officers. The child’s mother told Keim she was going to call the sheriff’s office, and Keim asked her not to call and wanted to work things out, the report states.
Baugh continued to question Keim, who began to grow nervous about the detective’s presence, the report states.. Keim kept asking about the severity of the crime and the punishment, officers said.
After the child was interviewed at the Cooper-Anthony Advocacy Center, Keim was arrested on May 1. Authorities went to arrest him where he was working, but he had already left for the day. Keim then turned himself in at the county jail, where he was arrested and served with a warrant. He told authorities that he did not touch anyone in a sexual manner.
His trial is set for Feb. 16-17 before Judge Gary Arnold.
|
Razorbacks
