Three people are facing charges for allegedly abducting and raping a 17-year-old girl in central Iowa. The girl told officers she was abducted from the backyard of her rural Hamilton County home Thursday afternoon and taken to a wooded area of Peterson Park in Ames.
Story County Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald says Ames resident Tana Tesdall was in the park at the time and placed a 9-1-1 call. The girl emerged from the woods and told Tesdall that she’d been raped. Officers arrested three young men; 20-year-old Mason Reilly of Ames, 16-year-old James Carsel of Boone and 16-year-old David Price of Ames.
All three are charged with second-degree sexual abuse. If convicted, they could each face up to 25 years in prison. Fitzgerald believes additional charges could be filed in Hamilton County.
“We’re working with the Hamilton County Sheriff’s office as they investigate the abduction angle up there,” Fitzgerald said. The sheriff noted that the victim and suspects are “acquainted” with one another, but declined to provide more details.
Reilly is being held at the Story County Jail on a $25,000 bond. Carsel and Price were taken to a juvenile detention facility in Eldora.