MALVERN, Ark. – Preventing crimes against children is a top priority for law enforcement in Hot Spring County. The sheriff’s office is asking possible victims to come forward and hopefully save a child.
The push for justice is happening at the same time as a court case for a Malvern man arrested for alleged sex crimes spread across four different decades.
Police said 55-year-old Donald Davidson was arrested in late October and has bonded out of jail. In Hot Spring County Circuit Court, he faces three counts of rape and three counts of second-degree sexual assault. An affidavit said all three alleged rape victims were children under the age of 14 at the time of potential crimes between 1989 and 2011.
Criminal Investigation Division Lieutenant Glen Pye submitted the affidavit to the court but said he could not comment on ongoing investigations beyond confirming they exist. However, to save a child, the Hot Spring County Sheriff’s Office is asking victims of any sex crime to come forward.
“If there are victims that we are unaware of, and I think that many times that there are, we would like to hear from those victims,” Pye said.
Pye stated there are between 10 to 15 open sex crime cases at the moment. Sometimes he will receive two in a week or he won’t get one for a month. Inside the Hot Spring Country Sheriff’s Office, Lieutenant Glen Pye has heard unspeakable things and seen adults cry like children.
“It’s devastating,” he said. “It’s devastating to them.”
As part of his job in the Criminal Investigation Division, he records the sobering details of rapes and sexual assaults to write warrants, and he’s seen repeating themes.
“Usually the offender is someone that the victim knows and probably trusts,” Pye said.
“People that start doing this, don’t stop doing this,” he added as another general observation.
Pye said over the years, he’s seen instances where one person is victimized but doesn’t report it for decades. By the time the person has reported, there are other new victims of the same person.
“They think in their mind that this is only one that this can happen to,” Pye said. “There may be a seven-year-old victim and a 40-year-old victim, but the 40-year-old victim was 7 when they were victimized.”
Pye said he knows being vulnerable is difficult but urges that the alternative could be letting a crime continue for years.
“To stop it from happening to somebody else that is the most urgent matter,” Pye stated. “That if this is happening to other children, we can put an end to that.”
Redacted court documents for the case of Donald Davidson show other potential victims were listed by alleged victims during interviews and censored. Davidson is presumed innocent by law until proven guilty. His next court appearance for plea and arraignment is scheduled for Dec. 6 at 1 p.m.