Man convicted of murder accused of raping DTSB worker while on parole

Marek Mazurek, South Bend Tribune
·2 min read
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A DTSB employee walks around downtown South Bend keeping track of cars parked in the parking zones last fall.Tribune File Photo/SANTIAGO FLORES
A DTSB employee walks around downtown South Bend keeping track of cars parked in the parking zones last fall.Tribune File Photo/SANTIAGO FLORES

SOUTH BEND — A Downtown South Bend worker was raped earlier this year, and a man who was on parole for a 2002 murder conviction has been charged with the crime.

According to court documents filed in September, Dennis Jones was charged with seven felony counts, including two counts of rape, after he allegedly assaulted a woman working for Downtown South Bend in the early morning hours of Aug. 21.

Jones, 50, had previously been convicted of murder in the death of Charmaine Crump in 2000 and was out on parole at the time the woman was raped. Jones was arrested last week and is being held in the St. Joseph County Jail.

Per charging documents, the DTSB worker was arriving to work shortly before 6 a.m. on Aug. 21 when a man she didn't know approached her on the street to ask if she wanted to go to breakfast. The woman later told police she didn't know the man but he was wearing a red shirt and khakis like a DTSB employee, so she hesitated. As she paused before getting in the car, the man "assertively told her to get in" and she did "out of fear since it was early in the morning and no one else was around to help her," court documents say.

The man then made the woman drive to the west side of the city, where he raped her, prosecutors report in court documents, before making her drive to an ATM and withdrawing $40.

Indiana State Police say their lab tested DNA preserved in a rape kit and it matched Jones' DNA on record from his murder conviction.

The new charges against Jones come after he was convicted of Crump's murder in 2002. According to Tribune archives, passers-by found Crump lying in a pool of blood in near the intersection of West Washington Street and Kenmore outside the open driver's-side door of her pink Pontiac with a wooden-handled kitchen knife sticking out of her neck. Crump's death on July 16, 2000 eventually lead to a trial for Jones, who was convicted after a St. Joseph County jury deliberated for just 40 minutes in Jan. 2002.

Jones was paroled in 2019.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Man convicted of murder allegedly raped DTSB worker while on parole