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14-Year-Old Boy Protects Mich. Rape Victim With Hunting Knife as Alleged Assailant Batters the Door — and Then Sets the House on Fire

Jan. 21, 2013 12:27pm Erica Ritz

14 Year Old James Persyn Hides Michigan Rape Victim, Guards With Knife as Attacker Sets House on Fire

James Persyn III, 14, holds the knife he had on Wednesday night while posing for a picture with his sister Acelin Persyn, 11, a their Shepherd, Mich. home, Jan. 18, 2013. (Photo: Detroit Free Press/AP)

The Detroit Free Press has one of the most terrifying, unbelievable “home alone” stories to strike rural America.

It is the story of a 14-year-old boy who was keeping an eye on his siblings while his dad ran a quick errand Wednesday night, who ended up guarding a reported rape victim with his hunting knife as an ex-convict battered at the door and threatened to kill them all. The alleged rapist eventually tried to set the house on fire, with the children inside.

James Persyn was watching television in his Shepherd, Michigan home– his 11-year-old sister playing with their 2-year-old brother– when he heard a frantic battering at the door.

“Her voice was, like, she was going to die if I didn’t open that door,” James recalled, so he looked at his sister and they quickly made the decision to let the woman in.

The Detroit Free Press relates:

A senior at Central Michigan University several miles north, the woman was walking to her car in a school parking lot when Eric Ramsey, a 30-year-old ex-convict, approached her with a gun, got into her vehicle, took her to his mother’s house and raped her.

The woman was an alarming sight. She had clear packing tape wrapped around her body. There were bruises on her face. She was cradling one of her arms, which she said was broken after she leaped from the vehicle as Ramsey was driving down South Mission.

She saw the little house with its porch light in the darkness, ran to it and begged to be let inside.

“She’s like, ‘We gotta hide! There’s someone out there who just kidnapped me and he’s trying to kill me,” James said.

The 11-year-old girl peeked out the window and sure enough, saw a vehicle slowly creeping up their long driveway.

This April 11, 2012, photo released by the Michigan Department of Corrections shows Eric L. Ramsey, 30, of Mount Pleasant, who was paroled in July 2012 after being convicted of assaulting a police officer and destruction of property. (Photo: AP)

The Detroit Free Press continues:

James locked the front door and ran to the side door to lock it, too. He herded everyone into the bathroom to hide. The injured woman got in the bathtub and cowered. [His siblings] Acelin and Angus joined her.

James went to his bedroom and grabbed the one weapon he has — a hunting knife. He pulled his Labrador retriever by the collar into the bathroom and closed the door, which has no lock. James turned the lights off, so if Ramsey got inside, he might pass by the bathroom and look for them in another room first.

“Let me in or I’ll kill you,” Ramsey kept shouting.

There they were — a rape victim, a dog too friendly to offer much protection and three frightened children, hiding in the dark, convinced they were about to die at the hands of the man trying to get inside. And the only thing that stood between them and him was a 5-foot-8, 142-pound 14-year-old boy holding a small knife.

The Persyn family residence in Lincoln Township was partially burned in the late hours of Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013 when ex-convict Eric Ramsey allegedly attempted to set it on fire. (Photo: Detroit Free Press/AP)

The university student quickly called 911 and then the boy called his father, who rushed over forgetting both his jacket and his house keys.

In the meantime, the children were waiting, hearts pounding, as the banging on the door subsided. Had the man gotten inside? Had he left?

In reality, Ramsey was pouring gasoline along the base of the house. He lit a match and drove away.

It was at that moment that the terrified father pulled up, throwing himself on the flames, attempting to extinguish what he could before it got out of control. Knowing it was a losing battle, James Persyn Jr. tried to get in the house, realizing too late that the doors were locked and he didn’t have his keys.

As fate would have it, that’s when the police came, mistaking the father for the criminal.

“I’m the dad! I’m the dad!” he yelled as a police officer ran at him, gun drawn.

Tiffany Ramon, the 28-year-old fiancee of 36-year-old James Persyn Jr., pose for a photo outside of their home by the burnt siding, Jan. 18, 2013, in Shepherd, Mich. (Photo: Detroit Free Press/AP)

Seeing the light of police cars, the kids opened the door to their frantic father and the law. The woman was reunited with her family, but no one knew where Ramsey was. Authorities quickly put out the fire before it could cause irreparable damage.

Police launched an hours-long manhunt for the ex-convict that night, during which time Ramsey reportedly rammed into a police vehicle three times “rendering it inoperable.”

Before he was shot and killed by police, Ramsey posted a status update on Facebook: “Well folkes im about to get shot. Peace.”

Ramsey was released from his prison term after five years in July 2012, according to Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan. He was convicted on a litany of charges, including intent to cause great bodily harm less than murder charge and assault with a dangerous weapon, but the parole board let him out at the minimum sentence time.

“I’ve been in this community for 35 years,” Central Michigan University Police Chief Bill Yeagley concluded. “I don’t remember anything like this.”

Meanwhile, though 14-year-old James Persyn’s classmates are calling him a “hero,” his father wants to keep young James grounded.

“We never put the word ‘hero’ out there,” James Jr. said. “We just kept saying, ‘We’re proud of you.’”

Fox 17 has more on the unbelievable story:

(H/T: Fark)

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Comments (173)

TemperBay
Posted on January 22, 2013 at 8:03am
Cool thinking under threat, bold determination, makes decisions on his feet…..this boy is well on his way to manhood, and more than most in this country, well raised and a pride to his name, family, and community.

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GUYFROMMAINE
Posted on January 22, 2013 at 7:26am
Glad the bad guy is dead. Don’t you love our “justice” system giving him the lighter sentence for his previous crimes. Just another example of how liberals have ruined another piece of our country. Apparently that creep didn’t understand that he should have reformed because of the caring and uncruel sentence he had been given. Murderers, rapists, child molestors all deserve one thing— death.

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RedDawn2012
Posted on January 22, 2013 at 6:32am
God bless that kid! He deserves a lot of hugs and maybe a nice reward for acting so quickly and correctly. As for the labrador that is “too friendly to offer much protection,” I can tell you from experience that even the sweetest lab will protect you and even attack with viciousness if you command him to. All you have to do is say, “Sic ‘em, Jumbo!” (or whatever the dog’s name is). I said it once many years ago when the paperboy entered our yard, and our sweet Jumbo bared his teeth and rushed full bore for his throat. If I hadn’t yelled “Stop, Jumbo!”, we’d have had a dead paperboy on our hands. Labs are VERY smart, and they often really do understand your intent, more from the tone and the way you say something than from the words themselves. You gotta love those labs!

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TheOriginalSquarehead
Posted on January 22, 2013 at 2:45am
A happy ending, anyhow.

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Margyt
Posted on January 22, 2013 at 2:43am
The lunatic ex-con rapist was armed? We must need better gun laws. Bet he got the weapon at a gun show or stole it from his mom…..or……guess we need a several billion dollar study to find out how and where ex-cons get guns. Or maybe we can go to a 100% weapons ban with possession being immediately punishable by death. That should solve the problem.

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LeadNotFollow
Posted on January 22, 2013 at 12:59am
Another dangerous criminal recently released back into the public, by an idiotic parole board.

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LeadNotFollow
Posted on January 22, 2013 at 12:56am
The perp is dead. The victims have closure. The healing has begun.

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sparkyrules
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 11:30pm
Sheperd,Michigan is a great little town.365/24/7. “Sweetest Little Town Anywhere Around”.
http://www.shepherdmaplesyrupfest.org/

You won’t find better people anywhere,trust me.

Just because a criminal committed his heinous acts in this area,mid Michigan has the best or better citizens young or old anywhwere,including James Persyn III.I’m real proud to be a Michigander and glad that this story had a half-way decent ending,other than the rape victim.
Kudo’s to the police for putting this evil man(Ramsey) down for good.

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WINNEBAGOMAN
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 10:45pm
Why all the chatter about banning guns and knives?

Why doesn’t Michigan just ban rape? Then innocent people will stop getting raped, right?

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tyuchic
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 10:32pm
well done, young persyn, and i thank god the cops didn’t shoot older persyn.

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HI_Don
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 10:20pm
Are you sure that was a “hunting knife”? It looks like an assault knife to me. The kind that you can kill unlimited numbers of people with. You know, with a large capacity number of stabbings in it. Sure, it isn’t a fully automatic knife, but as a semi automatic knife it virtually has unlimited killing potential. I just don’t know why anyone needs a knife like that. You don’t need to stab a deer 100 times to kill it. And teaching a child how to use an assault knife? What was that father thinking? Citizens should not be allowed the ability to purchase such dangerous weapons of mass destruction. And without a waiting period, without a background check….I’ll bet they bought it at one of those knife conventions. Clearly the right laws are being thwarted by the knife lobby and the NKA (National Knife Association). The founding fathers never could have imagined a day when we would have such “arms” as these and I’m sure the 2nd amendment doesn’t apply to ALL knives.

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oceanrcr
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 10:17pm
How is dad on an “errand” with no keys and no coat… snow on the ground, mid winter in Michigan.
Sounds more like he was having a few beers in one of the other trailers, leaving the kids to fend for themselves.

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jim375
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 9:22pm
why wont they learn to keep these ******** in prison or just give them the needle?…..they cant be re-habilitated

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bikerdogred1
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 9:04pm
I can see the justice system doesn’t work well in Detroit.

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gingerbread
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 8:51pm
Too bad he wasn’t armed with a gun. I’m willing to bet that this house will consider arming themselves with a gun, for the next time.

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media-bias-steals-elections
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 8:22pm
It would be nice to see the press wait until the toxicology tests come back so that the public can actually understand the story if it was prescription drug related or not, that would be the ethical thing to do? Is the media in such bad financial shape that it can’t wait a few days before releasing all of the story, so that some of weak minded people out there are not full of anxiety they don’t really need?

No, the ethical thing to do is yell “fire in the theatre”, your cameras are the theatre, and the editorial staff creates the fire?

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blackfeather
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 7:57pm
watch out…here comes the “knife ban”…

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Dkoonz
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 7:55pm
Think dad should be proud of his son. Now go out dad and thi boy a ar please.

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pma_guy
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 7:49pm
Great story! and if the dad had been responsible by teaching young James how to shoot a gun, the victims would have been much safer!

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RSHLUVER
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 7:47pm
Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.

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ChiefGeorge
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 7:32pm
He most certainly is a hero. He let the lady inside and that saved her life.

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CHowells339
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 7:25pm
whoa that hunting knife could have just stabbed everyone in the house and gone out and stabbed everyone in the neighborhood. These darn hunting knives are a threat to society.

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applehill
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 7:24pm
I get so sick and tired of hearing about rape and murder. It’s time we just kill these criminals and be done with it. Sorry you’re parents didn’t hold you or cuddle you. You still don’t get a free pass on doing what is evil.

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Larry E
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 6:13pm
Too bad the lad didn’t have one of those nasty .223 “assault rifles”, he could have saved the state a pile on a trial and likely another young woman being raped when the ACLU decides he’s spent too long in jail or some liberal judge sentences him to 5 years with a bunch off for good behavior is way more than plenty.

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dogday
Posted on January 21, 2013 at 5:23pm
James, you can live the rest of your life knowing that you are truly a hero. You saved that young woman’s life. I am a mother in Michigan and I also have a daughter in college–your bravery is something to behold. God Bless you, your siblings, and your golden retriever, too. And to the parents who raised this young man–you are amazing!

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