Serial rape suspect from Lake Norman area accused in more attacks, NC sheriff says
A serial rape suspect from the Lake Norman area faces additional charges after two more women told sheriff’s investigators he sexually assaulted them in his car.
The latest cases involve victims who reported that Michael Brandon Shinn attacked them in Lincoln County after each met him online and agreed to go out with him, according to a sheriff’s office news release on Thursday.
The 29-year-old Sherrills Ford resident has been in the Iredell County jail since June, when Mooresville police accused him of sexually assaulting a woman in a “remote parking lot” on River Highway (N.C. 150 West) near Lake Norman, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
At the time, Mooresville police said they were working with law enforcement from “multiple surrounding agencies” that are investigating similar cases, and agencies as far away as California.
Shinn has lived in Huntington Beach, California, according to a public records search by the Observer.
Out for a date
While investigating the case, Mooresville police said Huntersville police contacted them about a second victim, who was hospitalized in the Mecklenburg County town after a similar assault in June.
That victim gave similar descriptions of the man who assaulted her and of his car, Mooresville police said. She also met the man online and was assaulted in the same parking lot, police said.
Each victim in the Lincoln County cases said they’d likewise met Shinn online and agreed to go out with him, according to the sheriff’s office.
One victim, a 29-year-old woman from another county, said Shinn sexually assaulted her on March 26 after he picked her up to go on a date, investigators said.
The other victim, a 22-year-old Lincoln County woman, told sheriff’s investigators that Shinn sexually assaulted her on Jan. 29, according to the sheriff’s news release.
Lincoln County sheriff’s investigators obtained warrants charging Shinn with two counts each of first-degree forcible sex offense and second degree kidnapping.
Shinn was already in the Iredell County jail on a $600,000 secured bond from the Mooresville charges and was given an additional secured bond of $500,000 on the Lincoln County charges.
‘Use your gut instinct’
At a news conference in June, Mooresville police Capt. J.L. Quinn advised the public: “If you are meeting someone that you are not familiar with, you want to get to know that person first, obviously. And if you are meeting them, make sure you are meeting in a public location, not secluded, dark ones.
“Use your gut instinct to make sure you are not putting yourself in a dangerous situation,” Quinn said.
Police urged anyone who may have been a similar victim, or knows of others who were raped, to call their local police department or sheriff’s office.
