Sex offender who fled Canada suspected of assault on 16-year-old boy

SEATTLE -- Early Tuesday morning, Rachel Brodeur woke up to a violent argument outside her West Seattle home.

“I fell asleep on my couch. It was about 5:30 a.m. and I heard somebody yelling and screaming and making really primal noises. As my neighbor described it, sort of Frankenstein noises,” Brodeur said.

Michael Stanley, 48, described by Canadian authorities as a violent sex offender, escaped from Canada and crossed into Washington state on Oct. 7.  Seattle police worried it was just a matter of time.

“This was, I think, our worst fear is that he would victimize someone here in our city,” Seattle Police Department spokeswoman Renee Witt said.

Stanley, who was born in the United States, was released from prison in Edmonton, Canada, in April 2011 after completing a 32-month sentence there for assault and forcible confinement of two mentally impaired boys. One of the conditions of his release was that he wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.

But police in Edmonton say he cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet on Oct. 1 and crossed the border at Blaine, Wash., on Oct. 7.

Canada doesn’t want him back; authorities have declined to request extradition.

“I guess they just don’t want to deal with it. I just hope we deal with it, because it doesn’t sound like this guy should be out on the streets,” Brodeur said.

Early Tuesday morning, responding to 911 calls from neighbors, Seattle police found Stanley, who has registered in Seattle as homeless, in an alley behind the Admiral Theater near Admiral Way and 44th Avenue SW.  Police said he was angry and belligerent.  Police said he also had a three-inch knife on him, so officers handcuffed him.  Police said that’s when an alleged victim came forward.

“A 16-year-old male walked over to the officers and told them the subject they had in handcuffs had sexually assaulted him earlier in the alleyway there,” Witt said.

Police said the teenager told them he met Stanley in a nearby Safeway and that the sex offender gave him alcohol before grabbing him.  Police said the boy told them that he then pulled out his own knife on Stanley and ran away.

When Stanley crossed the border earlier this month, he was not wanted in the United States for any crime.

In Canada, in addition to his 2006 sentence, in the late 1980s Stanley spent nine years in prison for the aggravated sexual assault of an 82-year-old woman who was in a wheelchair.

Stanley, being held in the King County Jail, is expected to appear in King County Superior Court Wednesday.