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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Retarded Teen Rapist Warned To Stay Away From Families

A mentally retarded teenager who admitted raping a 4-year-old neighbor boy two years ago was warned Thursday that any future problems could get him banished from his Camden Gap home.

Pend Oreille County Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson made the blunt warning while renewing a protection order for the victim’s family and granting a new one to another family that feels threatened by Shawn McIntyre.

Kristianson said he had no choice at the time of the offense but to allow McIntyre to return to his family’s rural home 10 miles south of Newport after a short absence for mental health treatment. McIntyre was only 16 at the time.

“Now you’re an adult and I don’t feel the same prohibition that I did a couple of years ago,” Kristianson told McIntyre, who is now 18. “You would, for all intents and purposes, be uprooted from your home to go I know not where.”

The victims’ parents, Richard and Dianna McSwain, and neighbors Joe and Elizabeth Krawiec said McIntyre continues to menace them and their children with taunts and ominous behavior. They said he has repeatedly violated terms of a court order restricting his use of an easement road across their properties.

Elizabeth Krawiec said in an affidavit that she believes McIntyre has been stalking her 8-year-old stepson. She said she has feared for her own safety as well because she often sees McIntyre carrying a club or a machete. She believes McIntyre has been responsible for placing logs across the access road, forcing her to stop and get out of her vehicle.

Kristianson ordered McIntyre not to carry anything that could be construed as a weapon unless he is working with his father using tools.

Representing the McIntyre family, Newport attorney Linda Mathis asked Kristianson not to renew the existing restraining order or issue a new one requiring McIntyre to keep away from his neighbors. The old order “has done nothing to end the bad vibrations between these families,” she said.

Mathis said McIntyre denies the new allegations against him.

“It’s like a worn-out bandage on a 3-yearold wound,” Mathis said, noting McIntyre had never been convicted of the alleged rape because he was mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Unimpressed, Kristianson responded, “That fact may never have been found in criminal court, but it’s true. That fact is not going away.”

Spokane attorney Tom Mix Jr., representing the McSwain family, said he has served a complaint on the McIntyre family and the state Department of Social and Health Services, seeking damages for failure to supervise McIntyre properly. Mix said he will formally file the lawsuit in the next few days.

, DataTimes