A 40-year-old Oregon woman who was accused of raping a child hundreds of times was found dead in her jail cell after a judge rejected her plea.
Woman who “raped a child hundreds of times” found dead in her jail cell
Tina Ketcham, a 40-year-old Oregon woman, was accused of raping a minor child hundreds of times, Metro reported.
She was arrested and arraigned on six counts of first-degree rape, two counts of first-degree sexual abuse, one count of first-degree sodomy and six other sex offenses after victimizing a minor child prosecutors say she knew.
Tina Ketcham, a 40-year-old Oregon woman, was accused of raping a minor hundreds of times, Metro reported.
“This is a situation where hundreds of charges could have been filed,” prosecutor Keith Stein said during a hearing in Albany, Oregon.
He explained that the charges Ketcham faced represented only a fraction of the alleged abuse he committed over a five-year period before his victim was able to contact police and tell them what was going on.
Although investigators did not disclose Ketcham’s relationship with his alleged victim to protect her identity, they did say that she knew him when the abuse began.
Ketcham denied the offenses and expected to be released on bail. Her lawyer, Stephen Doyle, argued that her involvement as co-owner of a local business posed a low flight risk.
At Ketcham’s bail hearing, the judge refused to reduce his bail from $350,000 to $50,000, denying a request for a bail reduction, the Albany Democrat-Herald reported.
A little more than two weeks after her arrest on multiple child sex charges, Tina Ketcham hanged herself in her jail cell after the judge denied her bail.
This should not have come as a surprise. Ketcham had attempted suicide twice since Albany police began their investigation.
“While conducting hourly security checks at 5:10 a.m. this morning, corrections officers found Tina Ketcham hanging in her cell and unconscious,” said Linn County Sheriff Jim Yon.
