OGDEN — A Roy man pleaded guilty Wednesday to trying to kidnap and rape a 10-year-old girl whom he followed after seeing her at a convenience store.

Richard Rodney Palmer, 44, admitted in 2nd District Court to charges of attempted child kidnapping and attempted rape of a child, both first-degree felonies. The first charge was downgraded in a plea bargain from child kidnapping.

Palmer and his attorney, public defender Randall Marshall, agreed in the plea bargain not to oppose the Weber County Attorney’s Office’s recommendation that Palmer be sentenced to three years to life in prison on the kidnapping count and 15 years to life on the attempted rape charge.

If convicted on the original child kidnapping charge, Palmer could have faced a sentence of 15 years to life.

A police arrest affidavit said Palmer was inside a convenience store on Aug. 27, 2021, when he saw and began following the girl, who had ridden to the store on a bicycle. After they left the store, the girl went to pass him on a sidewalk and he allegedly grabbed her by the neck. She resisted and screamed and the suspect ran away, police said.

Palmer allegedly told Roy police he was attracted to the girl and his plan was to take her to the backyard of a vacant house where he stopped her “to have sex with her or something.”

Judge Cristina Ortega set Palmer’s sentencing for March 7.

Palmer is held without bail in the Weber County Jail. Utah Department of Corrections records show Palmer is on the state sex offender registry after serving three years in prison before being paroled in 2010.

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