Sex offender on the loose
Vancouver: Police warn public about sadistic Marcellus Jacob
Susan Lazaruk, The Province
Wednesday, November 29, 2006

A sadistic sexual attacker has walked away from his Vancouver halfway house and is on the loose in Vancouver.

Police fear Marcellus Norman Jacob, 26, known as Marcel, is a high risk to offend again. A warning has been released and a Canada-wide warrant issued for his arrest.

"He rates up there quite high," said Vancouver police Const. Tim Fanning yesterday. "We don't put them [public advisories] out about everybody, so the fact that we put out the warning means it's a concern."

Jacob was released to the undisclosed house on Oct. 27, the day he finished serving the mandatory two-thirds of his seven-year sentence for a 2001 sexual assault in Whitehorse. The attack left the woman traumatized and unable to leave her house alone.

The sentencing judge called Jacob a "ticking time bomb."

Jacob, then 20, was armed with a knife when he broke into the woman's home while she slept. He ordered her to perform "de-plorable, degrading acts" and committed multiple physical and sexual assaults against her for two or three hours, according to a 2002 sentencing report.

A federal parole board granted Jacob statutory release after he served two-thirds of his sentence, which is required by law except in rare circumstances. He was ordered to live in a halfway house.

Jacob ended up in Vancouver, where he knows no one, because halfway houses in Whitehorse refused to accept him because of past behaviour and a petition protesting his return.

A parole-board report noted Jacob would need a "great deal of structure and monitoring" as provided by a halfway house. It also pointed out that he was suspended from a sex-offender maintenance program and continued to use marijuana.

But the parole board also said Jacob had become involved with aboriginal and spiritual practices and had made "efforts to change [his] attitude and behaviour."

Tim Goodsell, area director for Corrections Canada, said Jacob had been doing well in the first month at the house, which is staffed 24 hours a day. It was hoped he would connect with the aboriginal network in Vancouver.

"His parole officer was surprised he went absent without leave," he said. "We thought he was doing quite well."

Goodsell said corrections, with police help, are looking for Jacob and hope he will turn himself in.

At his first attempt at parole, just 18 months earlier, in March 17, 2005, the board denied his application, citing his uncontrollable sexual aggression, substance abuse and anger management problems, his lack of life skills, poor coping abilities, few marketable skills and no social contacts beyond criminals and addicts.

The report noted a psychological assessment from July 2004 put his risk for future violence and sexual offending as moderate to high.

Jacob was born to an alcoholic teen mother and father, who abandoned him seven months later to the care of his maternal grandparents, who were raising 11 children of their own.

His young life was marked by neglect and sexual and physical abuse by his uncles. He was placed in more than a dozen foster homes by the time he was 18. Jacob is native, five feet four inches tall, 169 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.

LAWS NEED TO BE CHANGED, SAYS ADVOCATE:

Canada's laws dealing with dangerous offenders need to be changed so those at high risk to reoffend can be kept in jail indefinitely, a victims' advocate says.

"Under the current law, it's a real Catch-22 situation," said Steve Sullivan of the Canadian Resource Centre for the Victims of Crime. "That's the flaw in our system: We just have to wait until they offend again."

To declare someone a dangerous offender, reserved for the most serious of offenders such as Ontario school-girl murderer Paul Bernardo, Crown prosecutors must make the application before sentencing.

Sullivan said the law should be changed to allow someone to be classified at any time "so we don't have to wait for another victim."

Convicts are released once they serve two-thirds of their sentence, unless there are "reasonable grounds to believe the offender is likely to commit an offence causing death or serious harm to another person."

Tim Goodsell of Corrections Canada said Marcellus Jacob didn't fit that criterion.

Offenders can also be held to restrictions after their full sentence expires only if police apply for a peace bond.

© The Vancouver Province 2006