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Jacob on the loose

Marcellus Jacob failed to report to his halfway house yesterday and is now wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant, confirmed Dennis Finlay with…

Marcellus Jacob failed to report to his halfway house yesterday and is now wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant, confirmed Dennis Finlay with Correctional Service Canada.

“The warrant was issued for his arrest for being unlawfully at large,” said Finlay on Monday morning.

“It looks like it was the afternoon that he did not show up when he was supposed to, and we issued a warrant right away with the police,” he said.

In 2001, Jacob broke into a woman’s house in Whitehorse and viciously tortured, raped and sodomized her at knifepoint for more than six hours.

He was convicted of the crime in 2002 and sentenced to seven years in prison.

In August, a National Parole Board report described Jacob’s crime as “brutal and sadistic.”

But in October, Jacob was given statutory release into a Vancouver halfway house after serving two-thirds of his sentence in a BC prison.

A report prepared before Jacob’s release notes he is at a high risk to re-offend violently and a moderate-to-high risk to re-offend sexually.

In the report, Jacob’s risk is considered “manageable” as long as he resides in a highly monitored halfway house and follows strict parole conditions.

Those conditions include constant monitoring and avoiding contact with his victim and her family.

“The victim of your offending is entitled to assurance that she will have no unwanted contact with you,” reads the report.

The document describes Jacob as having a long history of sexual aggression and a mixed personality disorder with anti-social and psychopathic features.

It notes Jacob worries about his potential to re-offend, and that drugs, stress and anger are his key triggers for criminal behaviour

The document also details Jacob’s interest in returning to Whitehorse.

“Many of the negative influences of your youth can be found in that community and it is suggested you are setting yourself up for failure by returning to this location,” reads the report.

In May, Jacob requested to be released from prison into the Yukon Adult Resource Centre halfway house in Whitehorse.

But the facility refused to take him, as did several others in Alberta.

In September, dozens of Whitehorse residents signed a petition opposing Jacob’s return to the Yukon.

As soon as Jacob failed to report to his halfway house, police were contacted, said Finlay.

“There’s very little leeway when somebody has a curfew. The police were notified right away,” he said.

“Anytime an offender is unlawfully at large we consider him a risk.”

However, Vancouver police said the warrant still does not appear on its alert system.

“Whenever somebody goes missing from their halfway house on something like this, Corrections Service would get a hold of us and put out a warrant,” said Const. Howard Chow with Vancouver police.

“It appears there’s a warrant that was applied for by the parole board yesterday, but when we checked the system it doesn’t show him wanted yet.”

The Vancouver police’s high-risk offender unit has monitored Jacob since he arrived in Vancouver in late October, said Chow.