FRANKLIN COUNTY : Authorities hope to find missing teen’s body
Posted on Thursday, February 14, 2008
Authorities “have an idea” where a Cleveland County couple buried the body of their 14-yearold niece, who disappeared from Ozark in 1999, and have plans to unearth it, an FBI agent said this week.
Special Agent Mike Lowe, testifying at a detention hearing for Wanda Faye Richart, 50, of Kingsland, accused in a federal indictment of killing the girl in a bathtub and keeping the death quiet for more than eight years, said the woman also abused the girl’s two brothers.
Lowe said that in 1997, Christina Richart and her two younger brothers came to live with Wanda Richart and her husband, Charles Walter “Bubba” Richart, their paternal uncle. The children’s father had died of cancer, and their mother was unable to care for them.
That same year, Lowe testified, one of the boys was “physically abused by Wanda” and was removed from the home by the state Department of Human Services.
He said that in spring 2000, after Christina disappeared, her other brother “was also discovered abused” and was also removed from his relatives’ home, which was then in Fordyce.
An indictment unsealed Friday charges Wanda Richart and Charles Richart, 52, with making false statements to FBI agents over several years to make it appear that Christina had gone to California with another aunt.
Lowe said Monday that neither the Franklin County sheriff’s office nor the FBI realized until 2005 — six years after the murder — that the girl was missing.
The indictment states that the Richarts were living in Ozark in Franklin County in 1999 when Wanda Richart and the girl got into an argument, and the woman forced the girl into a bathroom, where the girl screamed for help as the woman ran the bath water.
When Wanda Richart opened the bathroom door, her husband and two other people who were in the home and who had heard the screaming but couldn’t get in to help, saw the girl’s wet, lifeless body, the indictment states.
Lowe said that Wanda Richart immediately warned all three of the onlookers — her husband, as well as a man and his 18-yearold girlfriend who were staying with the couple — not to notify police.
The indictment states that Wanda and Charles Richart buried Christina in a wooded area outside Ozark that same day. Then they, along with their boarders, moved to Fordyce, where they had lived before.
Lowe said the 18-year-old soon moved out, opting to return to a house where she had been abused, because she feared Wanda Richart and “couldn’t take living there any longer.” Before the woman left, Lowe said, Wanda Richart pulled the then-pregnant younger woman into a room and, with her hands on the younger woman’s throat, “told her that if she said anything, she would kill her and her baby.” He said that several months later, Wanda Richart called the younger woman, again warning her not to tell.
The FBI agent said Wanda Richart should remain in custody until her trial because the threats show that she is a danger to the community.
U. S. Magistrate Judge John Forster Jr. agreed, saying that although the federal crime with which she is charged — lying to FBI agents — isn’t generally regarded as a crime of violence, a law permitting judges to detain certain defendants for safety reasons does apply “in a case where violence is an integral part of the scheme.” In the past two weeks, Lowe said, the younger woman has said she still “is afraid Wanda will find her and kill her. She asked me if she should get a gun.” He said the woman told him that she had wanted to tell someone about the girl for years, “but she was afraid of Wanda.” Describing Wanda Richart’s power over her husband, Lowe said that Charles Richart “pretty much does what she tells him to do.” He acknowledged under cross-examination by Wanda Richart’s attorney, assistant federal public defender Chris Tarver, that Wanda Richart had been aware since 2005 that the FBI was looking into Christina’s disappearance, yet she hadn’t issued any new threats to the younger woman.
Tarver asked that Wanda Richart be allowed to remain free until her trial, so that she could continue to care for her elderly parents and a sister with dementia who lives next door. He presented testimony from Sarah Miller, 30, of Redfield, who is Wanda Richart’s daughter and who said she has never known her mother to harm anyone.
“Do you know that your mother and father cashed Christina’s Social Security checks for 18 months after she disappeared, claiming she was still there ?” Assistant U. S. Attorney Pat Harris asked Miller.
“No,” she said.
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