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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has determined the man who kidnapped an 11-year-old Midvale girl, smashed her face with a hammer and tried to rape her should spend the rest of his life in prison.
Just 16 days before the August 2002 attack on the girl, Javier Wilford Sickler, 32, attacked and raped a 32-year-old woman walking home from a restaurant.
Sickler pleaded guilty to three first-degree felonies in the attack on the child, and was convicted of four first-degree felonies in the attack on the adult. First-degree felonies are punishable by five years to life in prison.
During a parole hearing last week, the Midvale girl and her family asked the parole board to never release Sickler.
That was the recommendation of pardons board hearing officer Kim Allen, and that was decision the full board announced on Wednesday. Its decision is not binding on future boards.
Sickler did not attend last week's hearing.
"He didn't feel he was safe," Allen said, adding that Sickler also was "sorry for what he had done. He didn't want to put the victims through any more trauma by his attendance."
On Aug. 18, 2002, Sickler went to the girl's grandmother's house and told the girl and her brother he was a friend of their father's. Allen said Sickler later returned to the house, took the girl from the bedroom, tried to sexually assault her, dragged her into the back yard and beat her with a hammer.
Responding officers heard noises and saw Sickler crouched over her. Sickler fled but was caught by a police dog.
At the hearing the girl's mother read a letter her daughter, now 14, composed for the hearing.
"I think this man should be in jail for life," the girl wrote. "If he were ever released, I would always be fearful for my safety."
The girl described the painful and often lengthy surgeries she underwent to save her life and repair her face.
"I'm blind in my right eye and I have 40 percent vision in my left eye," the girl wrote. "It affects my ability to draw. I love to draw and paint."
The mother said the entire family is in therapy because of the attack, which still gives her children nightmares.
Allen said Sickler also had been linked to several sex crimes he was never charged with. He said Sickler himself had been physically and sexually abused growing up.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
