LEXINGTON, Mo. — What began with a series of arsons has escalated to rape according to the woman who says she’s a victim. Her name is 38-year -ld Shawna Jobe of Lexington, Missouri.
The mother of three and her husband say the family is being targeted and they don’t think police are taking them seriously.
“The police think that I’m targeting myself,” Shawna Jobe tells FOX 4.
Lexington Police won’t say if they think Shawna Jobe is committing a hoax. Police will only say they’re conducting a full investigation and will follow the evidence where ever it leads.
FOX 4 doesn’t normally identify the victims of rape but Shawna Jobe has agreed to let FOX 4 use her real name. She says police think she may be responsible for the suspicious fires at her family’s house and she suspects police don’t think she was really raped Saturday morning, even though she agreed to undergo a rape examination at a local hospital. Police have not released the results of the rape examination.
Shawna Jobe says she first called police in April after a suspicious fire in her laundry room. After two more fires, the family moved into a rental house down the block. Police say there were a total of five house fires, all minor and all started inside the family’s home. On July 25, the family’s Dodge Durango was found on fire at the church were Shawna Jobe works. A week later the family’s Jeep Wrangler was set on fire, also at the church.
The most serious incident happened Saturday August 4, when Jobe says she was raped in her backyard at around 12:30 a.m. Jobe tells FOX 4 she heard her dog barking and when she went into the backyard to investigate she was jumped by a female and two males. She says the three suspects were white and in their late teens or early twenties.
“The female that was with them continued to cut my face with something that was metal and she kept hitting me in my face,” she said.
Jobe says the three suspects sexually assaulted her and lit her hair on fire. Her husband, 39-year-old Kenny Jobe tells FOX 4 he’s been using sleeping pills and didn’t hear his wife being attacked by did wake up when she came back inside the house smelling of smoke.
“I was sickened. She was completely naked, her hair was burnt, her face was scratched and bleeding,” said Kenny Jobe.
Kenny and Shawna Jobe say they think the family is being targeted by enemies of their teenage daughter. They say they’ve moved out of Lexington for their own safety.
Shawna Jobe was charged with making a false report and theft after this story aired on FOX 4. Investigators say she committed insurance fraud when she accepted more than $25,000 for a fire set in her home last April.
