A child molestation victim and her mother spoke out Monday as Kevin Paul Rose, convicted in April of the 10-year-old crime, was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison.

“I would urge you to lock him up and throw away the key,” Lisa Rathbun, the mother of the victim, told Judge Thomas Harrington. “You’d want to see him dead if he did this to your daughter.”

Her daughter, Cadence, also spoke.

“It’s good that you have him off the street so he doesn’t take other girls’ innocence,” she said.

Rose accepted a plea deal in April for two counts of child molestation. Cadence was the victim in both cases. She and her family now live out of state and returned to Tracy for the sentencing hearing.

She was 4 years old in September 1996 when she was molested in her home on the 200 block of West Grant Line Road. She was molested again about a week later at a church next door to her home.

Deputy District Attorney Xapuri Villapurda said Rose’s acceptance of the plea deal wraps the case up quickly and means that Cadence did not have to testify against Rose or face cross-examination.

“She’s a brave girl,” said officer Steve Bailey, who investigated the case 10 years ago. “I think she would have been a good witness.”

Rose spoke only to acknowledge Harrington’s explanation of the sentence, glanced often toward members of his family in the audience, gave a statement through his attorney and fought back his emotions as he was led from the courtroom.

“On behalf of my client, I’d like to present his sincere apologies to the victims and their families,” said his attorney, Vangie Eidsvik-Garza.

Detective Octavio Lopez, who has investigated child molestations for the Tracy Police Department for the past year, arrested Rose on Dec. 21, 2006, after a state Department of Justice lab matched Rose’s DNA profile with the DNA profile taken from the girl’s clothes and from the scene of the two molestation incidents.

Rose had to submit a DNA profile as a condition of a child molestation conviction in late 2001 in Marin County. He served four months of a six-month jail sentence in that case.

Police connected Rose to another molestation incident with a different girl through fingerprints left at the scene and believe that he had at least one more victim.

To reach reporter Bob Brownne, call 830-4227 or e-mail brownne@tracypress.com.