Emily Gurnon, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn. –
He beat her, choked her, held her against her will and forced sex on her, then the St. Paul man told his girlfriend, “I need you to act like everything is all right,” when police knocked on the door, according to criminal charges.
The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Jacob Michael Herrick, 26, with domestic assault by strangulation. Herrick is being held at the Ramsey County jail on $30,000 bail.
St. Paul police were alerted Saturday, June 30, by a neighbor who called 911 at 5:46 p.m. to say that a woman was screaming in an apartment hallway in the 1300 block of St. Paul Avenue in Highland Park.
The neighbor saw a man “physically carry the screaming female back into an apartment,” said the complaint filed Monday.
The document continues with these allegations:
When they arrived, police heard muffled sounds from inside, but no one answered their knock. They heard a crying woman say, “Please just open the door.”
Officers forced their way in and found the 23-year-old woman “sobbing uncontrollably” and the apartment in disarray. They arrested Herrick.
The victim at first was too distraught to speak, other than to repeat, “I was so scared!” Upon regaining some of her composure, she told police that Herrick, with whom she had been in an on-again-off-again relationship for four years, had punched her and grabbed her around the throat, strangling her.
The arguing started that morning, when the woman returned home from her overnight job as a
personal care assistant to find Herrick, his sister and his sister’s boyfriend inside. The apartment smelled of marijuana, and the woman told police she “wants nothing to do with drugs” so the two argued.
She also became angry when she looked at his cellphone and noticed he had been texting other women, the complaint said.
The woman left for a time, but came back. She told police she feared Herrick would wreck her property and change the locks, as he had in the past.
That evening, the woman said, Herrick repeatedly demanded that she have sex with him, and when she would not agree, he pinned her down and raped her. She locked herself in the bathroom when it was over.
“She said Herrick then apologized, but soon became angry and tried to kick the bathroom door open,” the complaint said. She opened the door to prevent him from breaking it, and Herrick threw a screwdriver at her, hitting her in the side.
In the living room, Herrick kicked her and took her wallet, keys and phone. She escaped down the hall and through the first fire door, but Herrick caught up with her, picked her up and carried her back inside while she screamed.
Herrick vowed not to let the woman out of his sight. He pushed her down and she hit her head “really hard” on a fan, she told police. Herrick then tied her hands together using the fan cord, sat atop her and put his hands around her neck.
“You’re really in for it now!” he warned.
She said he squeezed so hard she could not breathe. He then forced pieces of a torn-up photo into her mouth, pinched her nose shut, put his hand over her mouth and told her, “Taste that!”
Police arrived shortly thereafter. Herrick told his girlfriend to act normally.
The victim said Herrick has abused her for years, both physically and emotionally, describing four or five “big incidents” in their time together.
Photos taken of the woman show marks on the side of her neck, bruising on her left forearm, blood in the corners of her mouth, a bloody injury from the screwdriver and red marks on her buttocks/hip.
Herrick was not charged with rape or kidnapping.
He is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday afternoon.
