Convicted child rapist trying to get released from custody

BOSTON — Wednesday night a convicted child rapist is trying to get released from state custody, again.

Wayne Chapman finished serving a 30-year prison sentence, back in 2004. After he raped two Lawrence boys.

Since then, he has had several hearings, only to be deemed sexually dangerous and remain in custody. As FOX25's Bob Ward reports this time, a jury will determine whether the child rapist will be able to walk the streets again.

Convicted child rapist Wayne Chapman has spent decades behind bars. The state believes he is still sexually dangerous, and it had him civilly committed since 2007.

Chapman is trying once again to win his freedom, but the state is fighting back. Wayne Chapman's sex offenses against children stretch back to the 1960's, and according to previous testimony in other cases, the actual number of victims could reach up to a hundred.

And, Chapman has long been suspected in the disappearance of 10-year-old Andy Puglisi from a Lawrence swimming pool in 1976. Andy's body has never been found.

At a hearing in Boston, the state is trying to show Chapman is still physically attracted to children, and should not be released.

An MCI Shirley Corrections Officer said she spoke to Chapman in the fall, and Chapman talked about playing Santa Claus.

"I had asked him, so you are getting out soon? And he said there was a potential for him to be out before Christmas," he said.

And, another MCI Shirley employee testified Chapman recently talked about changes in the state's sex offender laws, a conversation, she said, made her nervous.

"He recently heard from his attorney that there were no longer city ordinances for sex offenders. That there was no longer a law that that they could no longer tell you where you need to be in a certain time. He was questioning me about that. If I had heard about that. I said I had. And he said therefore, I need to be very careful of where I went, very sure of where I went. So there would be no temptations to go into some of those areas," she said.

Cox Media Group