Suspected rapist set free, family living in fear

INKSTER, Mich. (WJBK) - A woman calls police on her own boyfriend after she said she walked in on him raping her mentally disabled niece.

But after days in custody, that man has been set free and her family living in fear.  And although her niece lives with her, the woman does not have guardianship papers.

And the victim's aunt says their family could be in danger now that  her ex-boyfriend is out of police custody. Police say they cut him loose because legally they could not hold him any longer---and it happened just as prosecutors are getting things in order to issue criminal charges.

"I would like to know what is up with the justice," Valerie Clemons said. "There's no help out here for us."

Livid and on alert would aptly describe Valerie Clemons after Third Circuit Court Judge Kathleen McCarthy denied a Personal Protection Order. Clemons sought for her developmentally disabled niece, it was against Clemons' former live-in boyfriend.

FOX 2: "She denied this PPO even though you told her this guy raped your niece?"

"Yeah, without guardianship, no," Clemons said.

Clemons says she walked in on her niece being assaulted early Sunday morning  as she got home from work.

"She was naked from the bottom down, he was also and he looked up at me and asked me what the hell I was doing here," Clemons said. "And I said what the hell were you doing."

FOX 2: "What ran through your mind when you came home and saw your boyfriend in that room with your niece?"

"I wanted to kill him," Clemons said. "If I had that gun in my hand he would've been dead."

But he was arrested and she says her 30-year-old niece is traumatized.

"She's trying to cope with it," Clemons said. "She has a learning disability with a mind of a 6-year-old. She doesn't know all that's going on but she knows a little of what's going on."

The Wayne County Prosecutor's Office interviewed Valerie early Wednesday but could not interview her niece for another day, it has to be done by a specialist because of her disability.

Meanwhile, time had run out for Inkster police they could no longer hold the man Clemons says raped her niece. And she says she's more than ready if he comes to her house.

"If he shows up he's not going to leave ... (he's going to) leave out on a stretcher."

FOX 2 was unable to contact Judge McCarthy about denying the Personal Protection Order. It is possible charges could be filed Thursday.

Police have an out of custody warrant to pick him up right after that happens.