Banished Boy’s Dad Charged Judge Says He’s Optimistic Tense Situation Will Improve

The father of a mentally retarded teenage sex offender has been charged with shooting at one of the neighbors who sought court protection from his son.

Even so, Superior Court Judge Larry Kristianson said Thursday he is optimistic that the tense situation in the backwoods of southern Pend Oreille County will improve now that he has banished 18-year-old sex offender Shawn McIntyre from his parents’ home.

Neighbors are fearful of the troubled teen, who is suspected of killing numerous domestic animals as well as raping a 4-year-old neighbor boy in September 1992.

McIntyre confessed to the rape, but escaped prosecution because he was found mentally incompetent.

Deputy Prosecutor Greg Hicks said juvenile law prevented Kristianson from retaining control over McIntyre for more than six months. After that, Hicks said, McIntyre quickly left a treatment center where he was enrolled.

Kristianson denied Joe and Elizabeth Krawiec’s request Thursday to add McIntyre’s father, Gilbert, to a no-contact order already in force against Shawn McIntyre. He said the father’s actions have been “worrisome,” but don’t constitute illegal harassment.

“I’m not going to say that the court is perfectly pleased with Mr. (Gilbert) McIntyre’s behavior,” Kristianson said.

However, he said he thinks most of the problems between the McIntyres and their neighbors were caused by Shawn. Besides, Kristianson noted that a District Court judge already has ordered Gilbert McIntyre to have no intentional contact with the Krawiecs.

Dressed in a Burns security guard uniform, Gilbert McIntyre left Kristianson’s courtroom Thursday to go to work in Spokane before the judge made his ruling.

McIntyre faces trial Nov. 6 on a gross misdemeanor charge of second-degree reckless endangerment. He is accused of firing his .30-06 rifle in the direction of Joe Krawiec on the night of July 19.

Sheriff’s deputies said McIntyre told them he fired into the ground in the direction of the road that separates his property from Krawiec’s. He laughed and said the next shot might not be so low, deputies reported.

McIntyre said he fired the shot after someone on the road bathed his house with a spotlight. Joe Krawiec denied aiming the light at the McIntyre home, but said he was searching the woods for Shawn McIntyre.

Krawiec and his wife said they heard noises near their pig pen and suspected Shawn McIntyre was trespassing on their property.

Kristianson warned in June that his hands no longer were tied since McIntyre turned 18. Any more violations of the order to stay away from neighbors would result in banishment, the judge said.

Earlier this month, he banned McIntyre from a two-mile radius around his parents’ home when the Krawiecs and Richard and Diana McSwain complained of continuing trespasses. Gilbert and Adelle McIntyre said they already had sent their son away, but declined to say where.

The Krawiecs say they still are fearful because they don’t know where Shawn is. Kristianson said he was assured by the McIntyres’ attorney, Linda Mathis, that Shawn is “a great distance away.” He declined to reveal the location, and said he doesn’t know whether McIntyre is being supervised.

Mathis declined to say in an interview whether Shawn is in a treatment program.

“It’s nobody’s business,” Adelle McIntyre snapped.

Because her son was not convicted of the rape, he is not required to register as a sex offender.

The case has been a frustrating example of laws that leave officials unable to protect the public or get help for troubled juvenile offenders, Hicks said.

“I feel a little bit snakebit,” he said, noting that another alleged juvenile rapist went free just a week ago because he was two months shy of his 12th birthday.

The Newport boy was accused of raping a 6-year-old girl in the presence of her 9-year-old brother. The suspect was baby-sitting the younger children.

Hicks said he hoped to force the suspect into a counseling program, but the boy now is free to continue baby-sitting.

Children between 8 and 12 years old are presumed incapable of committing a crime unless prosecutors can prove a child is unusually precocious.

Superior Court Judge Fred Stewart ruled Hicks failed to prove the defendant already had the capability to commit a crime that state law says he will gain in two months.

“It’s almost impossible to prove that,” Hicks said.

, DataTimes