Rape Suspect Didn’t Register As Sex Offender, Officials Say

A man accused of raping a 73-yearold Spokane woman and slashing her throat failed to register as a sex offender when he moved to Spokane, prosecutors charged Monday.

Paul Eugene Brown, W1802 Gardner, was charged with rape, firstdegree burglary and failing to register after he moved from Tacoma in April.

Brown, 21, who lives on the same block as the victim, is being held in Spokane County jail on $50,000 bond.

The rape victim is recovering at the home of a relative, who described her injuries as one cut “from ear to ear” and another jagged cut from her hairline to her left eye. Both were inflicted with a knife.

The victim also has a cut on the back of her head from being slammed against a wall during the Jan. 19 assault, and has several large bruises on her abdomen, the relative said. Her checkbook and other items were stolen.

The victim believes the rapist was trying to kill her.

“He knocked at the door and before I could answer, he just pushed right in … He pushed me into the bedroom,” said the woman, who lives alone in the West Central neighborhood.

“During the (rape), he told me if I didn’t stop screaming, he’d kill me.”

The victim said she identified Brown as the rapist from photographs police showed her.

A neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said he also identified Brown as the man he saw calmly leaving the victim’s basement apartment about 11 p.m. the night of the rape.

Detectives say they found Brown’s fingerprint in the victim’s apartment.

Details about Brown’s previous sex offense were not available Monday, but he has a lengthy list of other convictions. It includes theft and delivery of a controlled substance in Pierce County.

Records in the West Side county show Brown also was arrested in 1992 for failing to register as a sex offender, but was not charged with the crime.

Since arriving in Spokane, he’s been charged with the theft of four frozen turkeys from a train car and with possessing marijuana. He missed court appearances for both charges.

One neighbor said she reported Brown to police for threatening herself and her children.

Brown, an Ohio native, also was charged with fourth-degree assault after he slapped his girlfriend, Sheryl Burnley, during an argument on Dec. 10.

“It wasn’t that he tried to (slap me) … He’s always very sweet to me,” said Burnley, 29.

As for the rape, Burnley said, “He don’t have it in him to do something like that.”

Burnley said she thinks Brown is the victim of mistaken identity because his description fits the one the victim and her neighbor gave police the night of the attack.

“He’s the only black man on the whole block who’s 6-1,” she said. “Everyone else is elderly and white.”

Burnley said the rape victim is a friend and neighbor who sometimes would watch television with her and Brown in their apartment.

“He (Brown) helped her home a couple of times. We all did,” she said.

Burnley said she met Brown in Tacoma, shortly after he was released from a Western Washington prison last March. She doesn’t know why he was jailed, she said, and didn’t know about the previous sex offense until Monday.

Laurie Ryan said she became acquainted with Brown from his visits with Burnley’s brother, who is Ryan’s neighbor. Ryan said Brown threatened her, her son and her daughter after the 14-year-old girl spurned his requests for a date.

Ryan said she reported the threats to police, but told them Brown’s name was Paul Hanson. Brown used that name when he introduced himself, Ryan said.

Burnley said she’s never heard him use the name, and that the incidents with Ryan’s children were misunderstandings.