PHILADELPHIA — Two years after a former Gettysburg College student finally saw charges filed over her 2013 campus sexual assault, the man suspected of sending her a Facebook message that said, ” So I raped you,” remains on the run.
Shannon Keeler, 28, and her attorneys question how Ian T. Cleary has avoided capture in an age when people are tracked by their cellphones, internet connections, security cameras and credit card purchases.
Investigators, led by the U.S. Marshals Service, believe the 30-year-old from Silicon Valley is likely overseas and on the move.
“How is he financially supporting himself? How is he able to travel abroad without detection? Has he assumed a false identity?” asked Andrea Levy, legal director of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, who represents Keeler. “Who’s helping him?”
Keeler was sexually assaulted on a snowy December night in her dorm room. She texted friends for help even before he fled, and went to police the same day.
For years, local officials declined her pleas to file charges, even after she showed them the startling Facebook messages she discovered in 2020. They reversed course weeks after she went public in an Associated Press story that examined the reluctance of local agencies to prosecute campus sexual assaults.
For Keeler, the years of limbo have been painful, even as she moves forward with her life and career. She works for a software company and is getting married this fall. But she remains on high alert for an arrest that could come at any time, knowing a trial could disrupt her life for months or even years.
U.S. marshals said the search remains active. An Interpol Red Notice has been issued, asking police agencies worldwide to detain Cleary, although he is not yet listed in the public database.