A man from Pennsylvania admitted to raping his ex-girlfriend’s daughter and killing her before hiding her body in a freezer last week, authorities said.
Jason Shackelford, 39, confessed to the gruesome crimes after law enforcement officers responded to a 911 call about a domestic disturbance between him and the 12-year-old girl’s mother at a Lancaster hotel on Friday, February 10.
Shackelford confessed to investigators that he attacked the little girl, sexually assaulted her, killed her, and stashed her in a freezer on Wednesday, February 8, inside her and her mom’s home in Columbia at night while her mother was working.
According to charging documents, the suspect told the police that he and Elaina Smith, 12, were in bed watching a movie when he raped her and then strangled her to death. Shackelford told the police that after killing her, he smoked cigarettes and drank alcohol for some time. He then put the body into a chest freezer in the basement.
The girl’s mother told police that she and the suspect were experiencing a bad breakup and she had asked him to move out of the house she shared with him, her daughter, and two other children they shared.
Upon returning from work on Thursday morning, Shackelford told her that he had kidnapped Elaina and taken her to New York, where he would keep her safe.
The mother also told authorities that Shackelford attacked and raped her and then forced her to accompany him to a nearby hotel, using Elaina’s safety as leverage.
The suspect allegedly raped the mom at the hotel a second time but allowed her to go outside their room to smoke. When she got outside, the mom told the hotel staff to contact the police, according to prosecutors.
When officers from the East Lampeter Township Police Department got there, the mom told them that Shackelford was involved in the kidnapping of her daughter. The suspect was taken into custody, where investigators found out they were no longer investigating a kidnapping but uncovering a murder.
Shackelford confessed to the murder prompting police to search the home, where they found the little girl’s body hidden in a freezer.
The Lancaster County Coroner’s Office performed an autopsy on the girl and ruled her cause of death as strangulation.
The Columbia Borough Police Department filed charges against the rapist/murderer: One first-degree felony count of rape of a child, one first-degree felony count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and one second-degree felony count of strangulation in addition to the charge of homicide.
Shackelford has a criminal history of terroristic threats, simple assault, and indecent assault following a 2019 incident. He is also a registered sex offender.
