U.S. Marshals Arrest Child Rape
Suspect in Carson City
The U.S. Marshals Service, supported
by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Carson City Nevada Sheriff’s Department,
announce the arrest of Wilbur James Ventling, aka John James
Stewart, in Carson City, Nevada. Ventling, 62, of Carson City,
Nevada, was arrested on October 9, 2007, for the May, 1979 rape of a
nine year old girl in Vernon, British Columbia, Canada.
In addition to the May 1979 rape,
Ventling was also suspected of committing a total of ten similar
offenses in the Calgary, Alberta, Canada area between July 1978 and
July 1979. The age of the female victims ranged from five to
thirteen. Ventling, while using the Stewart alias, was arrested
related to these violations in September 1979 and remanded to an
Alberta, Canada mental health facility for a psychiatric
examination. Ventling escaped from this facility in late September
1979 and fled to the United States.
Fingerprints taken in 1979 confirmed
that Ventling and Stewart were the same person. It was determined
that Ventling was unlawfully at large in Canada in 1979 due to his
May 1978 escape from a psychiatric hospital in Colorado. Similar to
the Alberta, Canada escape, Ventling had been at the Colorado
hospital for a psychiatric examination stemming from a sex assault.
In October 1979, Ventling was
arrested in Las Vegas on charges of kidnapping, lewdness with a
minor under 14 years and attempted sexual assault. Ventling was
convicted and sentenced to forty years in prison for these crimes.
Ventling successfully appealed one of his sentences, and was
subsequently released from prison in September 1997.
In March, 2003, Royal Canadian
Mounted Police re-opened the May 1979 rape investigation related to
Ventling. DNA samples from the May 1979 crime scene were
successfully matched to the DNA profile of Ventling. A joint RCMP
and US Marshals Service investigation led authorities to Ventling’s
address in Carson City, Nevada. Canadian authorities requested and
were granted a United States arrest warrant for Ventling based in
part on the evidence and investigation mentioned above.
Ventling’s twenty-eight (28) years of
evading justice ended at approximately 1 p.m. on Tuesday, October 9,
2007. A U.S. Marshals Service led team arrested Ventling at his home
in Carson City, Nevada, where he had been living as a registered sex
offender in the state of Nevada. Ventling is being held in the
Washoe County Nevada jail on the charge of Fugitive from a Foreign
Country to the United States. Extradition proceedings are pending
for his removal to Canada to face charges of Rape and Causing Bodily
Harm With Intent to Wound.
The U.S. Marshals Service is the
primary agency for the investigation and apprehension of federal and
state fugitives in the United States. The removal of these fugitives
from the streets is instrumental in reducing violent crime in all
Northern Nevada communities.
The U.S. Marshals Service is the
nation’s oldest federal law enforcement agency. Annually, U.S.
Marshals arrest more than 50 percent of all federal fugitives and
serve more federal warrants than all other federal agencies
combined. For more information on other USMS Top 15 fugitives and
USMS Major Cases, go to
www.usmarshals.gov. |