Serial Rapist Gets 33 Years

A serial rapist identified through a videotape was sentenced Friday to more than 33 years in prison for raping three women in their homes and trying to rape another woman, the King County prosecutor’s office said.

Jeffrey Paul McKechnie’s lawyer told King County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Learned that his client also intends to plead guilty to five rape charges in Pierce County.

Police have said McKechnie, 27, of Bonney Lake, has admitted to 12 rapes in King, Pierce and Thurston counties.

He pleaded guilty Aug. 10 in King County Superior Court to three counts of first-degree rape, one count of attempted second-degree rape, and three counts each of firstdegree robbery and first-degree burglary.

During his plea, he told the judge he didn’t want to “spit in the faces of the victims again” by putting them through a trial.

McKechnie was arrested May 25 at a Salem, Ore., motel. He had disappeared from Western Washington after police went public with drawings and videotapes of a man using a victim’s bank card at a convenience store.

In court Friday, McKechnie stood with his head bowed as his victims addressed him.

“Mr. McKechnie is responsible for crushing my spirit and leaving me numb,” one victim told the judge.

He turned to look at the women when one of them asked that he “take a look at the lives that he has destroyed.”

Learned sentenced him to 400 months in state prison, following prosecutors’ recommendation.