Teenage girl reveals how she fled rapist named Vanwinkle 'because he fell asleep after he murdered her mother, brother and sister'
- A sex offender from Indiana, Jaacob Vanwinkle, is charged in the March 9 sexual assault and triple slaying in Canon City, Colorado
- 16-year-old girl said she was able to flee after Vanwinkle assaulted her for second time because he passed out after taking some of her mother's pills
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Newly-released court documents are revealing details about the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl and the killings of her mother, brother and sister in southern Colorado.
A sex offender from Indiana, Jaacob Vanwinkle, is charged in the March 9 sexual assault and triple slaying in Canon City.
Citing an arrest affidavit released on Friday, the Canon City Daily Record reported that the 16-year-old girl said she was able to flee her home after Vanwinkle assaulted her for the second time because he passed out after taking some of her mother's pills.
Jaacob Vanwinkle, who has been charged in connection with the murder of a mother and two children in Canon City, Colorado
She told authorities her family members were tied up in the garage, but officers found their bodies in a bedroom in the house.
Investigators say Vanwinkle, who was living with the family, was found in another bedroom and arrested.
Vanwinkle faces charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault. A judge told him he could face the death penalty if convicted.
The charges were the latest in a violent criminal history that spans a decade and at least two states.
Vanwinkle had been required to register as a sex offender since 2004, when he was convicted in Indiana of child molestation and other sex crimes involving girls as young as five and seven.
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ShareAfter moving from Indiana to Colorado, he was required to register four times a year. He was supposed to report to the sheriff's office of Colorado's Fremont County, where Canon City is located, on March 4 but never showed up, Capt. Don Pinover said.
Pinover said the law gives sex offenders a five-day grace period, so a judge would not have signed a warrant until Monday, the day after the slayings. Vanwinkle was also wanted in another Colorado county on suspicion of violating a protection order, Pinover said.
'He was already wanted, and nobody knew where he was,' he said.
Vanwinkle served less than two years of his seven-year sentence and was in and out of prison in Indiana for parole violations and theft. He was released in 2012. Less than two months later, police in Colorado say his pregnant ex-girlfriend told them he beat her. She told officers he tied her wrists with shoe laces, held a pillow over her head and threatened to rape her.
A Canon City police officer is pictured at a home on March 10 as they investigate the deaths of a mother and two young children found at the home
Vanwinkle pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of domestic violence and was sentenced to 18 months in Fremont County jail.
Court records show relatives were concerned about Vanwinkle from an early age.
A relative who lived with Vanwinkle told police after his 2004 arrest for child molestation that she wasn't surprised.
The woman told officers 'she was afraid something like this was going to happen' because he had 'problems with exposing and fondling himself' since he was 16 and arrested in a grocery store parking lot, according to police reports.
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