Greencastle man gets 50 years for attempted rape incident

By ERIC BERNSEE

Editor

A 37-year-old Greencastle man, who wanted to plead guilty just three days after a May 25 attempted rape and robbery incident for which he was charged, got his wish Thursday morning.

Keith Allen Shepherd was sentenced Thursday by Putnam Circuit Court Judge Matthew Headley to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted rape, a Class A felony, and robbery resulting in bodily injury, a Class B felony, in connection with the recent incident in the basement area of the Inn at DePauw in Greencastle.

Judge Headley also ordered Shepherd to be listed on the violent sexual offender registry for life as part of his sentence.

Shepherd was ordered to serve 48 of the 50 years, with the two remaining years on probation in a legal maneuver that allows a no-contact order to stay in effect between the defendant and his 23-year-old victim.

In return for guilty pleas to the two major charges, the state agreed to dismiss three other counts against Shepherd:

-- Criminal confinement, also a Class B felony, punishable by 6-20 years in prison.

-- Battery by means of a deadly weapon, a Class C felony punishable by 2-8 years in prison.

-- Theft, a Class D felony punishable by six months to three years in prison.

Shepherd had also faced a possible habitual offender sentencing enhancement (an additional 30 years maximum) for having at least two unrelated felonies on his criminal record. He had prior convictions for sexual battery (2010), theft (2012) and attempted residential entry (2013) on his record.

"This was a true, random attempted rape," Putnam County Prosecutor Timothy Bookwalter commented following the sentencing hearing.

"Never in my 10 years (as prosecutor) have we had such a random act as this," he added. "Usually it (the attacker) is an ex-boyfriend or a husband or someone they've met in a bar."

The odds, Bookwalter stressed, don't often point toward such a random act in which the perpetrator wanders into a building like the hotel and stalks an employee in a secluded area as Shepherd reportedly did,

"Unfortunately, certain people are just dangerous like that," the prosecutor added. "You've got to lock them up. We asked that he be locked up for the entire period. It's pretty serious stuff."

The victim was in court Thursday, the knife wound to her neck clearly visible.

"It was very courageous of her," Bookwalter said of the young woman sitting in on the sentencing hearing with her parents.

"The victim and her parents are satisfied (with the outcome)," the prosecutor added.

As a result of the incident, Bookwalter said the hotel is installing a keypad system in which a code is needed to access areas of the building.

"So that's a benefit that came out of it," he said, noting that Shepherd has asked to be incarcerated at New Castle, a prison that includes a mental health facility on site.

Shepherd, who admitted to just a seventh-grade education when he asked the court "to just get this over with" and allow him to represent himself during his initial hearing May 28, testified Thursday that as a teenager he spent time in the state mental hospital at Logansport.

A little more than an hour after the May 25 incident, Shepherd was taken into custody about 10 a.m. near Hanna and Indiana streets, just a couple blocks south of the crime scene.

The victim suffered a cut on her neck and was stabbed in the stomach (one-third to a half-inch deep), wounds that were inflicted after the suspect became rattled. While trying to undo the victim's clothing in the secluded laundry area of the inn, Shepherd apparently heard a noise in the hall.

That sudden noise reportedly prompted Shepherd to nervously go check a nearby corridor. Upon returning to the laundry room, he cut the young woman with a knife, took her cellular phone and fled the scene.