A heavily tattooed sexual predator who calls himself Pirate, having left Fairbanks on Christmas Eve and appeared in Redding, Calif. now has that community up in arms.
Social media groups (“Redding Pirate Tracker”) and news reporters have been sounding the alarm, and one television news story focused on how the news of his arrival in Northern California may trigger anxiety in victims of sexual violence.
He told reporters he just wants to collect his government disability check and then he’ll move along; he made the same statement in Fairbanks.
Pirate, aka Raven, has no small history of rape and assault accusations, along with other violent and nonviolent crimes.
[Read: Pirate is back in Fairbanks, and some are concerned]
In 2015, a woman flew to Fairbanks to join Pirate, who took her to his rough cabin in Manley, where he subjected her to torture and rape over a five-week period.
According to court documents, Pirate beat, kicked, and bit her daily, cut her with a knife and duct-taped her to him at night so she could not escape. He tied a rope around her neck and tethered the other end to the rafter during the day.
After weeks of torture and rape, the woman was able to call for help and was rescued by a helicopter on Nov. 8, 2015. She later died of unrelated causes.
DNA from that case helped authorities arrest Pirate for a previous unsolved rape case from 2004 in Nevada. He was extradited from Alaska to Las Vegas in 2016, but pleaded down the charges to a single count of “sexually motivated coercion.”
Redding citizens have a special reason to be concerned. On Feb. 5, 2004, Pirate broke into a hotel room, where he beat a woman with a belt and raped her. He wasn’t arrested for that crime until 2010, and he served four years in prison.
Born Daniel Selovich, he legally changed his name to Pirate in 2013. He’s been transient for years, living in the drug world of the urban homeless camps across the west and in Florida.
Police stopped him while he was panhandling on the street to see who they were dealing with.
Then, police issued a warning for people to not harass the man in any way but to treat Pirate “like every other man you see on the street.”
“Don’t try to grab him or attack him if you see Pirate out and about,” Redding police Sgt. Todd Cogle told a reporter. “I live here and I have loved ones here as well. I know it’s worrying to know that he is on the streets but he is a free man. You have to treat him like every other man you see on the street.”
The Redding Police Department has received at least six calls from fearful citizens. But Pirate is not currently wanted for any crimes.
[Read: Sexual Predator is free and living in Northern California]
Pirate caused fear when he arrived in Fairbanks in early December, 2019, just before the intense cold season set in. He was living in the woods, but spending his days at a McDonald’s restaurant, posting on Facebook, and trying to reestablish himself in Alaska.
[Department of Law says it can’t reopen ‘Pirate’ rape case]
Pirate ended up at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital in mid-December, but the details of his stay are protected by law. He left the hospital, and then left the state on Dec. 24. By then, the temperature in Fairbanks was bitter cold.
The Fairbanks Facebook group that was tracking him, which grew to nearly 4,800 members in the three weeks since Pirate had been sighted, went dormant.
Dr. Patricia Bay, a psychologist in the Redding area, said the intense coverage and awareness on social media can scare victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, and make them feel vulnerable. But it’s also a wake-up call for them to remain vigilant. Bay, in this televised interview, advises victims to stay strong by being aware of their surroundings:
“collect his government disability check”? WTF is wrong with this picture?
I was wondering that very thing!
Stupid Californians. Quit drinking the Kool-Aid down there damn it. This guy is free, free to prey on women the way a wolf preys on a sheep. I don’t expect this guy is going to be on the street for much longer. Probably read about him disappearing after seeing a Bigfoot in the Oregon mountains.
Why does he get disability? Why do I bother working?
I don’t know but simply by looks alone, he’s suffering from mental deficiency.
Rpd has warned citizens not to confront him it’s only a matter of time till he rapes again it’s all on LE now
If this guy ends up with a gov’t check I think there will be a lot of angry people that have worked hard and are truly eligible, but have been denied wrongfully. It could get real ugly, and law suits might just start flying as well. Why did this guy only do 4 yrs for such a heinous crime any way? What is wrong with our Justice system, and wasn’t it two of his victims that died, supposedly unrelated to him? I’m not buying any of this. Lock the guy up in mental health and throw away the key. This whole thing is very disturbing, and how is getting around from state to state like he is anyway? I find it hard to believe with that psycho tat on his face people are giving him rides. I’m so disappointed in Redding, CA and our justice system!
Well for one thing he’s in the right place of the country to get handouts. Remember when California went bankrupt for doing that and we had to bail Arnold out? There are a lot of people walking around on the streets with mental illness. They don’t have anything on him right now to charge him with other than maybe a parole violation or jaywalking or some damn thing, but I feel sure that his days are numbered being on the streets. Californians are pretty stupid but they’re not that stupid. Now I’m lumping all of California in the one basket, which is totally unfair. There’s lots of good Californians down there and I feel for all of you. Same way with Oregon and Washington — most of those states are red with good common sense and values.
Talking about predators, I watched for a little bit today the coverage on Kobe Bryant going down in his helicopter. They briefly, barely scraped over the fact that in 2003 he raped that girl in Colorado. Then he paid her off to stay out of court and she sued him afterwards and got some more money that was undisclosed. They briefly explained it as one of his immature moments in life. What got me was when asked why the girl had choke marks on her neck, he said that was his thing. Kobe asked her if he could ejaculate on her face and she said no and that told him that she could be screaming get off me and NO if she wanted to so he continued. Then there’s the Ben roethlisberger incident where he basically did the same damn thing, the same as Harvey Weinstein. These California people and Rich athletes that buy their way out of trouble and then the media describes how they were so good for children and role models and everything makes me sick. I don’t know how many, but I suspect many women tonight are relieved to know that a predator went down in flames today.
This is a new low for you Greg. How low are you willing to go??
How do you figure? Be careful who you idolize. Karma doesn’t care how rich you are.
Plus we should talk more openly about these things instead of pretending it never happened.
Can’t handle the truth?
The good doctor wants us to be scared of Pirate rather than Pirate be scared of society.
Why is he getting a government check? Do taxpayers have a right to know?
Why did he serve so little time for a heinous crime? Does one get time off for tats or just tats all over one’s face?
Ah, the chance for all Californians to show their celebrated tolerance! Don’t tell me they’ll miss their opportunity. That, or maybe being intolerant of bad behavior IS a good thing. Sometimes it takes these things to get our heads on straight.
If it wasn’t for the amateurish full facial jail-house tat, Pirate wouldn’t be such a boogy-man.
We use facial tells to give us a preliminary assessment of others, for that snap decision whether they’re a threat, or whatever. After that preliminary, we may decide to go further and look them in the eye, to deepen our assessment, to see if we might want to engage them further than a glance.
Pirate’s facial tat hinders our preliminary assessment, and forces us to look him in the eye. That by itself puts us on the immediate defensive. From there we’re more likely than not to assess him as a threat, an annoyance, an interruption, any number of negative connotations.
Pirate made the mistake of choosing Islander tribal facial tats, which were designed to intimidate enemies. Whomever did the tat, didn’t know enough about Islander tats to know how to include the family recognition symbols, which would make him appear rather benign to family and friends.
True Islander facial tats required an scowl to turn the tats aggressive and fearsome looking. Without the scowl, the effect was more like “Bozo The Clown”.
Pirate’s tat doesn’t have that “benign” effect. He looks threatening no matter what. Maybe that’s the effect he wanted?
I wouldn’t think someone with a handle of Pirate would survive very long in the wild.
He had an active warrant out in Tennessee on him, maybe they haven’t collected him for it, because they don’t want to draw him to their state. If I remember correctly it was a misdemeanor of vandalism and theft out Chattanooga way.
Redding is horse and cattle country at least it use to be, he would do better further south in California. Maybe he could get off the dole and pick up up some work in the Murder Mountain area, while he’s in the Jefferson state end of California.
Need to change the law. He should be in jail.
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