A Liberal, Kansas, man faces multiple charges after allegedly kidnapping and raping a 13-year-old girl from Denison, Texas.
Randall Waters and another man allegedly had contacted the teen girl at a Denison restaurant and convinced her to accompany them back to Kansas. Once there, the girl said Waters forcibly raped her.
He said he planned to turn the girl into a prostitute and sell her services to other men. Several people visited his home while the girl was being held there against her will, police said.
Police obtained a search warrant for an address in the 800 block of South Lincoln Avenue. The girl was found at 1010 S. Kansas Ave.
Police arrested Waters, 63, on Dec. 7. The other man has not been arrested or charged, and police declined to answer questions about him.
Waters has been charged with rape, aggravated human trafficking, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated interference with parental custody, aggravated intimidation of a victim and aggravated indecent liberties with a child.
He is being held on $500,000 bond. Waters is scheduled to appear in District Court at 9 a.m. Friday, Feb. 4.
Liberal Police Department Sgt. Dustin Post said Waters remains in custody. Post added that Waters was not a stranger to Liberal police officers.
“We’ve had some run-ins and dealings with him but nothing as serious as this, obviously,” Post said.
Post said the victim was relieved to be freed from Waters and was in a safe setting. He declined to reveal if she had been returned to Texas.
Police thanked Southwest Medical Center and the Liberal Area Rape Crisis & Domestic Violence Services for their assistance.
Post, who has been a police officer for five years, said human trafficking has become more of a public concern.
“I don’t know if it’s necessarily increasing," he said. "I think it’s publicized a lot more now than it was back in the past.”
He said both the public and law enforcement are more aware of human trafficking and are alert to the signs of it.
According to a 2016 report from the University of Texas at Austin, there are 78,996 minor and youth victims of human trafficking and 234,457 victims of labor trafficking in Texas at any given time, totaling 313,453 victims of human trafficking.
