LUMBERTON — A 21-year-old man will serve more than a lifetime in jail for his role in a 2009 crime binge involving the kidnapping and rape of a teenager, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Jamal McRae was sentenced on Monday to a minimum of 95 years and a maximum of 117 years for first-degree rape, two charges of first-degree sex offense, first-degree kidnapping, robbery with a firearm, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and conspiracy to commit robbery in the March 26, 2009, kidnapping and rape of a 17-year-old.
“Mr. McRae will draw his last breath while in the custody of the state of North Carolina,” said Erich Hackney, investigator for the District Attorney’s Office.
The jury deliberated an hour before finding McRae guilty on all charges. McRae still faces several charges relating to earlier crimes committed on the same day, including the kidnapping of an acquaintance and two home invasions. A person was shot during one of the home invasions.
Six armed guards from the Department of Corrections guarded McRae in the courtroom, and two stood outside, according to Hackney.
“This is the kind of person we were dealing with,” Hackney said.
On Sept. 29, 2009, while awaiting trial, McRae escaped from the Robeson County jail when a jailer left a back door propped open while he went outside to smoke a cigarette. McRae was captured a few days later, on Oct. 4.
McRae’s crimes, as well as the robbery of a man in a bathroom stall at a Fayetteville Walmart on March 14, 2009, were committed while he was out on bond for unrelated charges, Hackney said. McRae followed the man into the bathroom, jumped over the stall partition, robbed him of money and jewelry and left him with facial fractures, Hackney said.
“Had he been incarcerated on the charges, the kidnapping and rape would have never occurred,” Hackney said. “… The fact that he was out on pre-trial release when these crimes were committed, the jury found it was an aggravating factor which bumped up punishment on charges for the crimes against the young lady.”
McRae, who was 18 at the time, kidnapped the 17-year-old girl at a Hoke County fast food restaurant at gunpoint and drove her vehicle to an undisclosed location, where he forced her to perform sex acts, Hackney said. McRae then drove to a Cumberland County fast food restaurant, where he used the girl’s debit card to purchase food, according to Hackney. McRae then drove to a dirt road in Robeson County, where he once again sodomized and raped the girl, Hackney said.
McRae released the girl, who began to flee down the road, but McRae struck her with her car, sending her into a canal, Hackney said. He dragged her out of the canal, put her in the trunk of her car, and drove to a fast food restaurant on North Roberts Avenue, where he went through the drive-through; when she heard the loudspeaker come on, she pulled the trunk release and ran inside the restaurant, and police were called, Hackney said.
McRae faces charges beginning in 2007, including assault on school officials, breaking and entering, larceny after breaking and entering, discharging a weapon into an occupied dwelling, assault on government officials, and attempted first-degree murder, Hackney said.
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This race card game is getting really old and boreing, can we play something else?
The main thing is, thank the man upstairs the girls life was spared. She probly will need a good deal of therapy to help her deal with what this trash did to her. Before ya'll so quick to use trees and ropes and the word 'hanging', just remember people, we wouldn't want others to use the word 'scalp' on us, so be careful for it sound racist. We must learn to judge others on the content of their character, and not they skin color, but judge on an individual basis. That being said, based on the content of this fools character, if it was left to me, I'd hang em too!