Crime & Safety
Police Charge Stray Sex Offender
Inver Grove Heights Police charged a 64 year-old convicted rapist with failure to register as a predatory offender late last week.
According to the criminal complaint James L. Morrow had gone off the radar, allegedly traveling back and forth between Inver Grove Heights and Duluth for weeks without notifying either jurisdiction of his whereabouts. Morrow had been required to register his places of residence with police since a 2001 rape conviction.
Morrow showed up at the Inver Grove Heights police department late last Thursday morning. He was charged when he filed an application to register a new Inver Grove Heights address, and police found a host of irregularities in his residential history.
Under Minnesota law, sex offenders are required to register all address changes. Morrow had been listed by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as non-compliant earlier this year, after he failed to respond to an annual verification letter sent to a Days Inn hotel in Duluth, where he was registered.
Find out what's happening in Inver Grove Heightswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Morrow stated that he was moving into the Inver Grove Heights address, on Candace Ave, that day, and that he had been staying at the Duluth Days inn until January 26.
Morrow said he had been staying at the Candace Ave address off and on in January, but did not register because he was traveling back and forth between Inver Grove Heights and Duluth.
Find out what's happening in Inver Grove Heightswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Minnesota law requires sex offenders to register secondary addresses, defined as places where they spend the night regularly, or occasionally, away from their primary address. If they do not have a primary address, they must inform law enforcement of their whereabouts on a weekly basis.
When contacted by the police, the Duluth Days Inn said that Morrow had not stayed there since 2010. A series of other Duluth addresses he provided, among them the Salvation Army in that city, came up empty as well.
Morrow said he was planning to stay at Candace Ave with a woman he said was his wife. He had not previously registered her home a his primary or secondary address, although his expired driver’s license listed it as his own.
James Morrow faces a prison term of up to five years, and a fine of up to $10,000. According to the Minnesota Department of Corrections website, no other registered sex offenders live in Inver Grove Heights.
