Couple pleads guilty to rape and sodomy of children
By Jason Cannon
The Clanton AdvertiserA former Chilton County minister and his wife plead guilty this week to raping and sodomizing their two children almost 18 years ago.
Ralph Randall Melton and his wife, Cathy G. Melton, pled guilty to the charges this week in Chilton County District Court and will await sentencing for those crimes.
"For the victims, I don't think it was so important that they spend time in jail, they just wanted them to admit in open court that they did these things," said District Attorney Randall Houston.
"They wanted them to acknowledge that they did it and realize the burden the victims have had to carry their whole lives."
Charges were filed against the couple in April 2004 by their daughter, who claimed she was repeatedly raped between 1975 and 1987.
Charges by the couple's son soon followed.
Melton was the pastor at Prospect Baptist Church in Wilsonville at the time of his arrest in but has also been the pastor of New Salem Baptist Church and Big Springs Baptist Church, locally.
They will be sentenced May 8 by Judge Sibley Reynolds.
