56-year-old registered sex offender from Mayflower gets life behind bars for raping a child in 2016

CONWAY, Arkansas – On Thursday, a man from Mayflower was given a life sentence for the rape and sexual assault of a child in 2016.

After deliberating for less than an hour, a jury decided that William Tod Rickert, who is 56 years old, was guilty of raping a juvenile. According to the statement made by the prosecutor for the 20th Judicial District, Carol Crews, this was Rickert’s third felony conviction, and he had previously been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for two other burglary offenses.

Another arrest has been made on the sexual offender who is suspected of raping a youngster.

According to what Crews revealed, the court heard testimony from two different women who claimed that Rickert sexually attacked them when they were younger.

In 2016, Rickert was arrested and accused with raping a youngster who was in his care when he was babysitting at his home in Mayflower. The victim was 13 years old. The young man had not told anyone about the occurrence at the time of the assault, but he came out with his story in the year 2020.

The Arkansas State Police Child Abuse Hotline received a report on the occurrence in the year 2020. According to the online court records, the Arkansas State Police began an investigation after they were informed about the matter.

A man from West Arkansas has been charged with the sexual assault of 31 minors.

During the time that the investigation was taking place, Rickert was being held in the jail in Kentland, Indiana on charges of burglary.

Investigators from Kentland conducted an interview with Rickert. The young man who was involved in the incident in 2016 was residing in Oklahoma at the time, and detectives in that state spoke with him. The Arkansas State Police obtained the interviews and then forwarded them on to the branch of the department that deals with crimes committed against children. After then, charges were brought by the prosecutor for the 20th Judicial District.

A court hearing was scheduled for the child assault accusations in west Arkansas.

When the charges for the Mayflower incident were brought against Rickert in the year 2020, he was already on the state’s sexual offender registry. While he awaited his trial, he was detained at the Faulkner County Detention Center.