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Jerry Andrew Active attempted to shield his face during his arraignment on charges of murder and sexual assault of a minor in the Anchorage jail court on Sunday. (AP Photo/Anchorage Daily News, Bill Roth)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska » A man suspected of beating an elderly Alaska couple to death and sexually assaulting their 2-year-old great-granddaughter over the weekend had been released from jail just hours earlier, according to Alaska Department of Corrections records.
Jerry Andrew Active, 24, was released from the Anchorage Correctional Complex where he was doing time for a probation violation shortly after 8 a.m. Saturday, according to the Anchorage Daily News. The attacks on the couple and the toddler occurred less than 12 hours later after he got into an apartment on the east side of the city by climbing in through an open window, police said.
Active was arrested after the couple’s grandson and his wife arrived home from a movie to find 71-year-old Touch Chea and his 73-year-old wife Sorn Sreap dead and the toddler being assaulted. The Associated Press typically doesn’t name victims of sexual abuse.
Active has been charged with murder, sexual assault, sexual abuse of a minor and burglary. A judge set his bail at $1.5 million on Sunday.
He has been “in and out” of jail since 2007, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Kaci Schroeder said Monday.
In 2009, he was arrested for sneaking into a Togiak home and attempting to sexually assault an 11-year-old girl while the family slept, then assaulting three members of the household, according to a report from Alaska State Troopers. Togiak is a mostly Alaska Native community of more than 800 people in western Alaska.
He was convicted the next year in a Dillingham court on charges of attempted sexual abuse of a minor and trespassing. He was released on Oct. 2, 2011 and put on probation. But Schroeder said he violated his probation repeatedly, sometimes being re-arrested on the very day he got out of jail.
From Oct. 2, 2011 to when police arrested him Saturday, Active had spent 18 days on the outside, according to a timeline released by the Department of Corrections.
“He messed up quickly and repeatedly,” Schroeder said, each time earning a new, short jail sentence.
On Saturday, he was released with an “approved housing plan,” meaning the Corrections Department knew where he was supposed to be living, Schroeder said. The same was true with each of his prior releases.
Active wasn’t required to report to a probation officer in person until the next business day, Schroeder said. That would have been today.
