Saturday, April 25, 2015
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Shawn Jarrett, who served a 30-year prison term in Pennsylvania for the 1982 murder of his female neighbor, 64, in Farrell and robbery of another woman, 58, in Sharon, has been sentenced to at least 70 years in prison for raping and robbing an 85-year-old woman in Grandville, Mich.
Jarrett, 51, was convicted in February in Kent County, Mich., Circuit Court of two counts of criminal sexual conduct and one count of home invasion involving the Grandville woman.
He received two life sentences earlier this month for the rapes and an additional 20 to 40 years for the home invasion.
The life prison sentences carry a minimum of 25 years each, and all three sentences will be served consecutively, meaning he would be eligible for parole only after 70 years, said Chris Becker, chief assistant prosecutor in Kent County.
Jarrett also is charged with the slaying of Berta Reyes, 40, who worked at the same greenhouse with him and was found dead after she disappeared in April 2014. His trial in that case is expected to take place this fall.
Jarrett lived with his parents on Dawson Drive in Howland near Eastwood Mall in January 2013 after he was released from prison in Pennsylvania.
That triggered warnings from Howland Township Police Chief Paul Monroe that area residents should be on alert because of the “homicidal tendencies” Jarret displayed when he committed his 1982 crimes at age 18.
Jarrett served his maximum sentence in Pennsylvania and therefore did not have to report where he was living after he left prison.
But police in Walker, Mich., later revealed in court documents that a prison doctor in Pennsylvania indicated in 2012, just before Jarrett was released from prison, that he “will kill again. It’s just a matter of time.”
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.
After he learned that Jarrett had been charged with rape in Grandville, Monroe said he wished western Michigan authorities had been given the same information about Jarrett’s history that Howland officials got, but “we had no idea where he had gone.”
Becker noted there were many similarities between the crimes in Grandville, Sharon and Farrell, and Kent County investigators came to the Sharon-Farrell area to gather information, but most of the witnesses from 1982 had died.
In the 1982 Sharon case, Jarrett asked his victim for a glass of water, which she gave him. In Grandville, he asked his 85-year-old victim to use the telephone. He also rode a bicycle in each of the crimes, and sexual assaults occurred in the Michigan case and one in Pennsylvania, Becker said.