'Needs To Pay:' Muskogee Woman Wants Justice For Teen Accused Of Raping Her

A 20-year-old Muskogee woman and her parents are frustrated the person she says raped her, has not been charged yet.

She says the 17-year-old has escaped from Oklahoma Juvenile Affairs custody and they will not feel safe until something is done. 

Because she is a rape victim, we're not showing her face or her parents. 

The woman we're calling Jane, says she wants the teenager charged as an adult because she believes that if he gets any more freedom he has the potential to do even worse crimes. 

Jane says last month, the 17-year-old who was the friend of a friend, drove to her apartment in Tahlequah with a gun, sexually assaulted her, then told her to stay quiet or he would kill her. 

"So I stayed quiet to keep myself and my roommate safe, but I had a feeling I was going to die, but at the same time, I didn't. I just wanted it to be over with," she said.

She says she called police immediately and went straight to the hospital, and the hospital called her parents. 

Jane’s Father, said, "You hear stories of it happening to other people, but you don't think it'll ever happen to you and then it does and it just changes your whole world everything flips upside down," Jane's father said.

Because the suspect wasn't arrested right after the assault, Jane’s family moved her out of state, and she says it feels like she's being punished for something he did. 

"I had to stop going to work I had to stop going to school, I had to leave my apartment," said Jane

More than a week after the assault the suspect was taken into custody by the Office of Juvenile Affairs (OJA) for unrelated charges, and a few days later he escaped, and returned to the area. 

Jane says she was afraid he would come back and hurt or kill her and her family. 

Her father says the OJA needs to be held accountable.

"They would have communicated with us so we would know hey, he's escaped you know, if your daughter is in town you need to get her out of town, something...They protected a violent offender more than they protected the victim in this case and that's uncalled for," said Jane's father. 

The teenager is back in custody after being arrested in Muskogee on Tuesday.

The Cherokee County DA says he has now reviewed the sexual assault report.

"It feels like they don't care about the victim, that's what it feels like, it feels like it's not an important issue maybe because he is 17 years old," said Jane's father.

Jane and her family believe he should be charged as an adult. 

"He played big boy games he needs to pay big boy price, she paid a big price, and he needs to pay a big price too," her father said.

The Cherokee County DA, Jack Thorp, says the teenager could be charged as a youthful offender or possibly as an adult, and his office will make a decision by the end of the week.

The Office of Juvenile Affairs sent a statement that says, "The Office of Juvenile Affairs (OJA) is bound to state and federal confidentiality statutes which prevent us from publicly discussing case-specific details."