According to reporting by Dan Nephin in a LNP/LancasterOnline article, a 21-year-old West Hempfield Township man is facing charges after authorities say he stabbed two different people on consecutive days and then sexually assaulted a woman just hours after the second attack.
Jared Trent Gower, who lives in the 4500 block of Klinesville Road, was taken into custody in the early hours of July 18. He now faces charges including rape, kidnapping, and several related counts, based on court paperwork made public Friday. He remains in custody at Lancaster County Prison.
Court documents describe how the alleged victim told investigators she had been socializing earlier in the day with a group that included Gower and a friend of hers. Later, while she was inside a locked portable toilet near Locust Street Park, she said Gower pulled her out, claiming her friend had asked him to come get her.
From there, police say Gower forced the woman into his vehicle and drove to a parking lot nearby, where he pushed her into the back seat and assaulted her. During the assault, he allegedly wrapped his hands around her throat and told her he had killed her friend by stabbing him. According to the documents, Gower let her go only after stopping to roll cigarettes.
Investigators questioned Gower about both the assault and a stabbing that had occurred around midnight between July 17 and 18, conducting the interview at roughly 5 a.m. that morning.
According to a separate set of charging documents, Gower and another individual, who has not been publicly identified, arrived at a residence on the 100 block of Bethel Street around 11:30 p.m. on July 17. A woman inside the home said she stepped away to the kitchen to prepare food after the two arrived, and returned to the living room after hearing noise to find Gower attacking a man who had been asleep on the floor.
She intervened, and Gower ran from the scene. When questioned by police, Gower reportedly acknowledged stabbing the man multiple times, telling investigators he had intended to kill him.
Charging documents do not detail exactly how Gower was eventually located, though a police department social media post credited Columbia officers, working with several other area law enforcement agencies, with arresting him on an outstanding warrant tied to yet another stabbing — this one reported in West Hempfield Township on July 16.
West Hempfield Township police say Gower stabbed a 60-year-old man around 11:30 p.m. that night at the same Klinesville Road address before running off ahead of officers' arrival. Authorities had reportedly been called to that property earlier the same day and had told Gower to leave.
Gower remains held at Lancaster County Prison with bail set at $500,000 on charges stemming from both stabbing incidents.
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