NEIGHBORS WORRIED AS SHANLEY ARRIVES
WARE — Residents in this tiny town were reeling after defrocked pedophile priest Paul Shanley moved into a quiet residential street across from a dance studio and right next door to three other Level 3 sex offenders.
Shanley, 86, walked out of Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater early yesterday after completing a 12-year sentence for the 1980s rape of a boy in a Newton church. He surfaced hours later in this small western Massachusetts community adjacent to the Quabbin Reservoir.
“He belongs in jail. I don’t care how many years he did. They should
have never let him out. He should have died in there,” said Leslie Mansour, 45, a mother of five who lives on the street. “I don’t want him on this street at all.”
Shanley, a once-prominent “street priest,” was accused of abuse by dozens of men in a case that was instrumental in the clergy sex scandal that rocked the Catholic Church — but two state-contracted psychologists evaluating Shanley at the end of his term said he was not likely to reoffend.
“Mr. Shanley is now 86 years of age, and current research would suggest that recidivism rates for sexual offending by individuals that age are extremely low,” psychologist Mark Schaefer wrote in his report obtained by the Herald.
That conclusion was not shared by Ware residents.
“He should never have been set free,” said Bob Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery, who protested in Ware with a sign reading “86 and still a risk.”
“He should be in jail for life. He is still very dangerous. The fact that he’s 86 is no barrier,” Hoatson added.
Shanley now lives in an apartment in a well-maintained, bright yellow house on a street lined with modest single-family homes, and a few multifamily residences. And that house is next door to a building that houses three other sex offenders who have been charged with child rape, indecent assault on a child and indecent assault and battery, according to the state’s Sex Offender Registry.
Across the street, Arielle Lask runs a dance studio that includes child students and is in the process of expanding.
“We’re moving to this location to provide service to the growing number of students,” she said. “It’s terrible and it’s unfortunate that he’s moving across the street, but there’s nobody who is better to be his neighbor than me because all I do is make kids safe.”
Lask said her dance studio will have security cameras as well as an alarm system and she will make sure children are never unsupervised.
Police will also be watching.
“I’m concerned just as any other official in Massachusetts would be concerned,” Ware Board of Selectmen Chairman Nancy Talbot said of the high concentration of sex offenders on the street. “But our police department is very knowledgeable and I believe they are doing what they’re expected to do.”
The state Sex Offender Registry Board classifies offenders by their likelihood of re-offending, with Level 3 as most likely to re-offend. While board officials do not comment on specific classifications, the board’s guidelines say while age is a factor, it is not a deciding one.
“Recidivism rates incrementally decline as sex offenders get older, especially as offenders move into their later years,” the guidelines state, but “advanced age alone does not outweigh other risk-elevating factors present in an individual officer.”