A Minnesota man is accused of raping, beating and dousing his girlfriend while he held her hostage in her college dorm for three days after finding texts on her phone that “enraged her.”
Keanu Labatte, 19, was arrested Sunday at the University of St. Catherine, a girls’ school in St. Paul, after the alleged victim fled the horrific abuse and alerted campus security.
Labatte arrived on campus Thursday after traveling 140 miles from Granite Falls to visit a girl he had been seeing for two months, according to a criminal complaint obtained by KSTB.
What should have been a romantic weekend turned dark when Labatte found texts, photos and social media information on her phone that reportedly “pissed her off.”
The man allegedly took her phone and kept it for several days so she could not call for help while he allegedly tortured her.
He repeatedly raped and strangled the woman until she passed out in her campus dorm room while making crazed threats to kill her and her family, prosecutors alleged.
Labatte allegedly forced his girlfriend to lie down in the bathtub before covering her face with a washcloth and splashing water over her until she struggled to breathe.
He also allegedly threatened her with a knife, telling her that he had held it to the throat of a previous girlfriend who had angered him.
Keanu Labatte has been arrested for holding his girlfriend captive and torturing her in her college dorm for three days. Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office
He even went so far as to grab the coed’s arm to find “the right vein to cut deep enough so no one could save it,” the victim told authorities.
He said the torture left him “so scared that he would just lay next to Labatte and not move for fear of what he was going to do to him,” according to court documents.
After days of horrific abuse, the student finally convinced Labatte to let him leave the torture-turned-dorm room to get food from the cafeteria on Sunday morning.
The victim eventually escaped after convincing Labatte to let him go to the cafeteria at the University of St. Catherine.LinkedIn / University of St. Catherine
He agreed — on the condition that he send her a photo after arriving to prove where he was — and gave the phone back, according to court records.
Instead, he went straight to campus security, who called police after finding bruises on his ears, face and neck.
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Police arrested Labatte in a dorm room, where they found a folding knife and a damp washcloth in the bathroom.
Officers also noted that the mattress had been moved to the floor, which the victim said Labatte had done so the bed would not squeak while he sexually assaulted her, the complaint said.
After being read his legal rights, Labatte said, “I plead the Fifth.”
The teenager was already on probation for violating a restraining order another woman took out against him, according to court records.
He has been charged with five felony counts: three for criminal sexual conduct, one for domestic assault by strangulation and one for threatening violence.
Each felony sex charge carries a prison sentence of up to 30 years, while the domestic assault and terroristic threat charges carry a maximum of three and five years, respectively.
A spokesman for St. Catherine declined to comment on how the abuse went unnoticed for days, citing students’ right to privacy.
“It is our policy at the University of St. Catherine to not release any comments that would compromise student confidentiality or potentially re-injure individuals. As this is an ongoing investigation, we do not want to compromise the integrity of the case as it develops,” representative Sarah Voigt said in an email.
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
