Virginia Beach, Va. - “He was supposed to be my uncle. He was supposed to be my family. He was supposed to be someone that I was supposed to be able to trust.”
April says she was just 4-years-old when Charles Pender Brown started molesting her.
“He bribed me with candy. He was always bribing me with candy,” says April. “And I remember him rubbing his genitals across my legs. That's the very first thing I remember. I remember feeling disgusted but I was also afraid. I was really afraid.”
She says the abuse went on until she was in her mid-teens. Her family -- she says -- didn't believe her. So she didn't bother telling Virginia Beach Police.
“He's just been walking free all these years, doing as he pleases. Even though I am physically free, I have felt like a prisoner because of what he did to me,” says April.
She'd given up hope that karma would ever come around. That is until she saw the story of his arrest on WTKR.com.
“I keep pulling the post back up and I keep looking at it in disbelief,” says April.
Beach police say they've linked his DNA to a rape from 1987.
They say he grabbed a woman walking along the Oceanfront, took her to a house and raped her.
Police arrested the 52-year-old earlier this month.
“I'm relieved that he's in jail, relieved that he can't touch anybody again,” says April.
She’s grateful Beach police are making progress on their initiative to solve cold case rapes.
Brown's arrest is one of several made for previously unsolved rape cases from the 1980s.
“Them going back into these cold case files, solving them, maybe it will give these people some sense of peace,” says April.
Peace is the reason she says she's decided to speak out after all the years.
She hopes that Brown will stay behind bars.
Brown is being held in jail without bond.
His next court date is set for December 29th.
As for April, she says she is strongly considering pressing charges for what happened to her.
If it rises to a felony level, he could still faces charges for molesting her.
