MOUNT VERNON — A Mount Vernon man was sentenced to life in prison Friday for raping a 7-year-old girl.
Christopher T. Wiggins, Mount Vernon, pleaded guilty on Nov. 16 to one count of rape in the first degree and failure as a sex offender to register a change of address, a third-degree felony.
According to court records, Wiggins raped a 7-year-old girl in her home on six separate occasions between early March 2007 and July 28, 2007. A registered sexual predator, Wiggins was a house guest in the girl’s home at the time of each incident. The rape for which he was sentenced occurred in the family’s living room, while other children were sleeping on the floor and the girl’s uncle was sleeping on a separate couch in the same room.
According to a report filed by the certified sexual assault nurse at Marion General Hospital, the girl’s mother said the uncle woke up at one point during the attack, but went immediately back to sleep.
“[The uncle] was sleeping on the couch and [the girl] was sleeping on another couch. All the rest of the children were sleeping on the floor camp-out style,” the girl’s mother said in the report. “Chris [Wiggins] came in with a large flashlight and sat down on the couch [the girl] was on. ... He came back in a third time to the living room and laid down on [the girl’s] couch. [The uncle] asked Chris what he was doing. Chris said, ‘I have a headache. I’m gonna lay down here on the couch.’ [The uncle] went back to sleep ’cause he had to work [the next] morning.”
According to the mother, the uncle did not realize until he got up in the morning that the girl was still on the couch when Wiggins was laying there. She further reported that the uncle said he heard the girl say “stop it” or “quit it.” Later he said he thought the girl was lying on the floor with the other children in the room.
Asked by the nurse if she knew why she was in the hospital, the girl said, “because Christopher Wiggins hurt me. I call him Chris. He scares me.”
Wiggins was arrested approximately two days later. The girl’s parents told police that at the time of the last attack, in addition to Wiggins, there were at least four other adults and their children staying in the house.
Wiggins was convicted in 1996 of two counts of sexual battery and one count of abduction for assaulting another child.
Under the recently enacted sex offender reclassification law, should Wiggins ever be released from prison, he will be required to register his address, any vehicle, e-mail address and employer with his county sheriff every 90 days for the rest of his life.
Incarcerated since his arrest, Wiggins was taken from court to prison.
