The ex-convict accused of kidnapping a Spokane girl and holding her hostage for more than seven hours lived for a month with an Idaho woman whose son he is charged with sexually molesting.
That charge and the now pending federal case are the latest in Richard John Tarver's long history of run-ins with the law, said Dave Mallery, head of the District 1 Bureau of Probation and Parole here.Tarver, 35, was arrested in Salt Lake City Friday after a tense standoff with police at a church where he had holed up with 9-year-old Amber Kern.
Warrants for his arrest had earlier been issued in Idaho in connection with the alleged molestation of an 11-year-old Coeur d'Alene boy at his home and at a Sandpoint motel.
Tarver lived with the boy's mother and brother through January, then moved to Kellogg for a short time and later to Spokane.
The boy's mother told the Coeur d'Alene Press Friday that she became acquainted with Tarver, whom she knew as John Lutz, when he wrote to her from prison in Oregon.
She had been writing to another inmate in the Clackamas County Corrections Facility in Oregon City, Ore., who gave her name and address to Tarver.
The 45-year-old woman and Tarver developed a relationship through their correspondence and made plans to marry after his release. He arrived at her home early this year, but the relationship was bumpy from the start, she said.
During one of his frequent trips to Kellogg and Sandpoint, she said, her son was molested. Soon the relationship in the household became strained, and the woman barred Tarver from spending time with her son. He moved to Kellogg shortly after and married someone else.
Police reports on the alleged molestation incidents were filed April 15, and the warrants were issued Thursday.
Mallery said Tarver was born John Richard Walls, although Washington Corrections officials said checks of Social Security and other records there showed Tarver was his real name.
Alleged aliases include John Richard Lutz, John Madison, R.J. Crabtree and Cary Bowles.
He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in Oregon on Sept. 17, 1980, on two counts of robbery and one count of assault. In December 1985, he escaped for one day, traveling to Snohomish County, Wash. where he was suspected, but never convicted, of sexually molesting a 13-year-old boy.
He was paroled from Oregon in 1987 but failed to stay in contact with his parole officer. He traveled to Idaho, and a warrant was issued in Oregon for his arrest.
In August 1989, he was convicted in Shoshone County of fraudulently obtaining public assistance. Upon his release from the Idaho penitentiary in April 1990, Tarver was supposed to enter a drug rehabilitation program. He failed to show up and was arrested and sent back to Oregon.
His Oregon parole was continued last Dec. 26, and the paperwork for his case arrived in the Salem office of Oregon probation officer Gary Dahl, who spoke to him only once the day after Christmas.
Dahl said Tarver wanted to come to Coeur d'Alene and had plans for his living and work arrangements. After arriving in Idaho, Tarver contacted Mallery at the Coeur d'Alene probation office several times, seeking to have his parole supervision transferred there from Oregon.
On March 13, Mallery told Tarver he couldn't stay in Coeur d'Alene because he had no family, no job and had run up large bills on his girlfriend's telephone.
Tarver soon contacted Dahl by mail and said he wasn't getting along with the Coeur d'Alene woman but had met another woman in Kellogg and planned to live with her in Spokane. He requested his supervision be transferred there.
On Wednesday, apparently after hearing he was going to be arrested on the Coeur d'Alene warrant, Tarver fled the state with Amber Kern.