A Farwell man accused of breaking into a nearby home, and abducting and raping an 11-year-old girl did not know the girl or her family, police said.
Justin Gaskill, 27, is accused of taking the girl from her bedroom at knifepoint and taking her more than a mile to his house, where he is accused of raping her twice before apparently trying to return her home.
“In more than 21 years of police work, I have never seen a random child abduction,” state police Lt. Christopher Stolicker, commander of the Mt. Pleasant post, said after Gaskill’s arraigment in 80th District Court in Harrison Monday.
Gaskill, hanging his head and answering questions in a barely audible voice, was charged Monday afternoon with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of kidnapping.
Both carry maximum penalties of any number of years up to and including life in prison.
Clare County Prosecutor Norm Gage also charged Gaskill with one count of home invasion, an eight-year felony; one count of felonious assault, a four-year felony; and put him on second-offense habitual offender notice.
If convicted, Gaskill, who was convicted of arson in Clare County in 2006, could get one-and-a-half times the maximum penalty because of the habitual offender charge.
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