MARION, OH (MARION COUNTY NOW)—A competency hearing has been scheduled for a Marion man accused of kidnapping and assaulting a woman earlier this year.
Shane E. Hooper, age 35, Marion, is charged with four counts of kidnapping, all felonies of the first degree; ten counts of felonious assault, all felonies of the second degree; one count of strangulation, a second-degree felony; and one count of tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony. The Marion County grand jury issued the 16-count indictment when it was convened June 14, 2023.
Hooper entered a plea of not guilty to all charges when he was arraigned on June 20, 2023, in Marion County Common Pleas Court. He was denied bond and is being held at the Multi-County Correctional Center in Marion.
Judge Warren T. Edwards has scheduled the competency hearing for Hooper at 2:15 p.m. on Dec. 20, 2023. Attorney Jon Doyle is representing Hooper in this case.
Hooper was arrested in early June 2023 after officers from the Marion Police Department were dispatched to a residence in the 300 block of Silver Street where they discovered a woman who had been severely injured.
The case was later referred to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office after it was determined that Hooper had allegedly held the woman against her will from May 27 to June 3, 2023, at a residence in the 6000 block of Smeltzer Road in Prospect. Investigators determined that while at the Smeltzer Road residence, Hooper allegedly used a baseball bat and a belt with a chain and padlock attached to it to beat the woman. The strangulation incident also allegedly occurred at that location, investigators said.
In a Facebook post dated June 10, 2023, Marion Police Chief Jay McDonald stated: “The victim in this case was beaten so severely, it was shocking to me even with 30 years of seeing bad things. I am extremely grateful she was rescued from the torture, as I believe she would have been killed without the intervention of law enforcement and others.”
According to online records maintained by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, Hooper was on parole at the time of his arrest in June 2023 for allegedly kidnapping and strangling the woman at the Prospect residence. He was convicted in September 2020 on one count of forgery, a fifth-degree felony, and was sentenced to serve eleven months in prison. He was released from prison in May 2021.