Questions raised about rape suspect's release - 13 WTHR Indianapolis

There are serious questions emerging about a man arrested for rape and why he was allowed to walk the streets.

Shawn Corbally, 33, was arrested for the sexual assault of a Greenwood woman in her Ashmore Trace apartment Sunday morning. Another woman now believes Corbally attacked her 11 days ago.

"I went out, yelling 'Help! Help! Help!'," the woman said.

Neighbors say the woman is still traumatized by the attack.

"He put his finger down my throat and squeezed my face and said he was going to smother me to death if I...he said let me see your (expletive) and I couldn't say nothing," the woman said.

She says the attack took place inside a laundry room at the Jeffersonian Apartments near E. 10th Street and Shadeland Avenue where she lives. A neighbor, Harold Carson, came to the rescue.

"I seen her in the corner and she's yelling, 'I have been raped. Help me. Help me. Help me'," Carson said.

Metro police arrested Corbally for that assault in the laundry room, but Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry says the victim failed to identify him as her attacker, making their case too weak.

"She had concern that she had not identified the right person. As a consequence, the detective put together a photo array and the victim was unable to pick the suspect out," said Curry.

The prosecutor's office released Corbally, but now he's suspected of trying to get into a home on Odell Lane in Greenwood. He was also identified by the victim of the Ashmore Trace assault. In both cases, victims identified the suspect's distinct tattoos.

"I have no doubt that he's done it again and again and again. If he gets let out, I'm sure he will just do it again," said a Greenwood man who wanted to remain anonymous.

Police say right before the Sunday morning rape Corbally tried to break into the man's house. He wonders why Corbally, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for a rape in 2000, is out in just 12 years to rape again.

"I would say somebody made a major mistake somewhere. Not too happy with it, but there's nothing I can do about that," the man said.

But Indiana Department of Correction spokesman Doug Garrison says, "In the ordinary case of a 25-year sentence, a person will serve only 12 1/2 years anyway, assuming that they behave."

That's because in Indiana, a prisoner has one day knocked off their sentence for every day they are good. He did break some rules, but the DOC says Corbally attended Alcoholics Anonymous and got vocational training and that cut his sentence.

"There's no predictor that says a person is going to re-offend or not," Garrison said.

He says 37 percent of Indiana offenders do re-offend. But if they've gotten substance abuse help, anger management classes and have a job and family help, Garrison says "they tend not to come back to prison."

"It's extremely frustrating," said former police chief Dr. Richard Weinblatt, now a dean at Ivy Tech.

Repeat offenses will happen, he says.

"You can't just hold onto them forever. We don't have the resources in this country to do it and we don't have the constitutional stomach for that kind of stuff," Weinblatt said.