The Niagara County Sheriff's Office announced late Monday afternoon that the man once known as William Shrubsall, a man who killed his mother on the eve of his high school graduation in 1988 and later fled to Canada to avoid a sexual abuse sentence, has returned to the United States and awaits long-delayed proceedings in outstanding cases in Western New York.
Shrubsall, whose also goes by the name Ethan Simon Templar MacLeod, was granted full parole by a Canadian board in late 2018, despite his designation in that country as a "dangerous offender" after being convicted of three violent crimes there, including a sexual assault.
Shrubsall, 47, was taken into custody upon his deportation from Canada, with the assistance of Canada Border Services, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and New York State Police. He is being held in the Niagara County Correctional Facility pending further proceedings. As of Monday evening, the Niagara County District Attorney's Office was arranging for his arraignment some time Tuesday.
He is being held on three separate Niagara County Court warrants for Sodomy in the first degree, Sexual Abuse in the first degree, Unlawfully Dealing with a Child, Bail Jumping in the first degree, and Criminal Contempt in the second degree. He was convicted in 1996 of sexual assault but fled to Canada before sentencing, attempting to convince authorities he had taken his life by going over Niagara Falls. He was sentenced in absentia to two-and-a-third to seven years in prison.
Shrubsall first gained notoriety when he bludgeoned his mother to death in 1988, on the night before he was to deliver the valedictorian's address to his classmates graduating from the former LaSalle High School. He was sentenced as a minor and spent 16 months behind bars. Upon his release, he enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was accused of multiple cases of sexual harassment.
Prior to his arrest and conviction for sexually assaulting a 17-year-0ld following a local party, he had been arrested for attempting to pick up what he thought was a prostitute, who in reality was an undercover police officer.
His convictions in Canada were for cases including the assault of a female convenience store clerk with a baseball bat, and for the violent assault of a woman who was trying to leave his residence.
