Man linked to assault by DNA gets three life terms

OROVILLE -- Three life terms in prison were ordered Thursday by a Butte County judge for a convicted Plumas County killer, whose DNA linked him to a brutal sexual assault and torture of an elderly Oroville woman in her home eight years ago.

In a written statement to the court, the beating victim, now 72, told Kevin Glen Rikard, 25:

"I guess we've both been given a life sentence of fear. Even though I'm free, I've been a prisoner in my own house" since the night of the vicious attack, the bespectacled, gray-haired woman stated.

The victim's husband was away on a hunting trip in September 1999, when his then 64-year-old wife was awakened at night in her Oroville home by a masked intruder demanding money.

Though she gave him her purse, she said the assailant "tried to break my neck over and over again, biting me so hard that I wore your teeth marks for over a year."

The victim was hospitalized six days with several broken bones, including multiple skull fractures, a broken nose and had one of her fingers nearly bitten off, according to deputy district attorney Brent Redelsperger.

The victim, who attended her attacker's sentencing hearing Thursday with her husband, told Rikard that for six years "I was terrified of being alone, as they hadn't caught you yet."

Unable to identify her masked assailant, the crime went unsolved until a little over a year ago, when Rikard was connected to the Oroville woman's attack through DNA tests while he was serving a life term for an unrelated murder in Plumas County.

According to the local prosecutor, Rikard was convicted in 2004 of robbing a man who he had encountered in a bar of $10, and beating him to death with a tree branch.

Philip Heithecker, Rikard's attorney, said in court Thursday his client was so high on drugs when he broke into the Oroville woman's home years earlier that he didn't even remember committing the crime.

The attorney said Rikard cried upon being told details of the brutal attack and agreed as part of a plea bargain to have two additional life terms tacked onto his murder sentence out of remorse because he didn't want to put the elderly woman through the further pain of reliving the ordeal in front of a jury.

"He apologizes to the victim for ruining her life and realizes he's getting what he's got coming to him," the defense attorney said.

The shaved-headed suspect stared straight forward, expressionless, when Superior Court Judge Sandra McLean sentenced him to two separate terms of seven-years-to-life for torture and aggravated mayhem.

The judge ordered the Butte County sentence to run consecutive to the 15-to-life prison term Rikard is serving in the Plumas County murder case.

Rikard will have to serve 13 years for robbery and burglary before commencing the three life sentences.

Outside of court, the elderly assault victim said while she is glad her attacker will spend the rest of his life behind bars, "I would have liked to just break his neck so badly."