Thursday, June 26, 2014
By Ed Runyan
GRANDVILLE, MICH.
A former Howland Township and Farrell, Pa., man who spent 30 years in prison ending in 2013, could get a life prison term and another 20 years if convicted of a home invasion and rape he’s charged with in Grandville, Mich.
Shawn Jarrett, 50, was charged with home invasion and criminal sexual conduct and placed in the Kent County, Mich., jail last Thursday, accused of robbing and raping a woman at 11 a.m. the previous day.
The home-invasion charge carries a possible penalty of up to 20 years in prison, said Grandville, Mich., Detective Sgt. Renee Veldman.
The criminal sexual conduct charge, which is similar to a rape charge in Ohio, carries a possible life prison sentence or a sentence for a specific number of years, she said.
In a Saturday press release, the department said Jarrett used a ruse to commit the home invasion and then robbed and raped the elderly woman who let him inside.
Veldman said Grandville police are not releasing an initial police report on the incident because the crime is still under investigation. She also wouldn’t answer any questions about the case, such as what type of ruse the suspect used to get into the woman’s house or the woman’s age.
The press release said the victim described her attacker as being in his twenties and said he rode away on a bicycle.
Jarrett is being held in jail without eligibility to make bond following an initial court appearance.
Jarrett spent 30 years in prison for killing an elderly woman who lived next door to him in 1982 in Farrell and robbing a 58-year-old woman in Sharon two months later.
He began living with his parents at their house on Dawson Drive in Howland in January 2013, after he was released from prison.
James Epstein, former Mercer County district attorney, said it is believed Jarrett left Howland for California not long after he got to his parents house.
Epstein said there is at least one similarity between the crime Jarrett is accused of committing in Michigan and one of the crimes he committed in 1982 — his method of getting into his victim’s house.
In order to get into the house of the 58-year-old Sharon woman in 1982, Jarrett asked the woman for water. After giving him the water and thinking Jarrett was gone, the Sharon woman went into her yard and to hang laundry, and Jarrett sneaked into her house, where he assaulted her, Epstein said.
“Fortunately for the victim, her daughter interrupted the crime,” Epstein said. That led to Jarrett’s arrest and conviction.
Meanwhile, police in Walker, Mich., which is about seven miles away from Grandville, have called Jarrett a person of interest in the murder of a 40-year-old woman who worked in the same greenhouse as Jarrett in April, when she disappeared.
He is not charged in the murder.