Jonathan Robert Tyrrell

Jonathan Robert Tyrrell

(Dauphin County Prison)

It took a Dauphin County jury just 40 minutes Friday afternoon to convict a Harrisburg man of raping an 8-year-old girl so brutally she required surgery.



Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Gettle said the verdict means Jonathan R. Tyrrell will face at least 25 years in prison when Judge Deborah E. Curcillo sentences him in October.



It is the 53-year-old's second conviction for a sex crime. Gettle said Tyrrell served 16 years in prison after being convicted in 1983 of raping a woman in New York.



After hearing three days of testimony, including live testimony from the girl and Tyrrell's recorded interrogation by two city detectives, the jurors convicted him on charges of rape of a child, indecent assault of someone under 13, unlawful contact with a minor and corruption of a minor.

Investigators said the rape occurred in a Chestnut Street home in April 2014. It left the girl bleeding from her genitals.



Gettle said DNA from sperm found on the girl's genitals tied Tyrrell to the crime. The girl, now 11, testified Thursday that Tyrrell raped her on a bed in the home.



First Assistant Public Defender Ari Weitzman argued that the girl was injured when she fell on a bed frame. He said Tyrrell didn't sexually assault the child. Tyrrell only told police he had accidentally penetrated the girl with his penis because he was "beaten down psychologically" at the time he was interviewed.



Weitzman declined comment after the verdict. Before deputy sheriffs took Tyrrell back to the county prison, he and Weitzman briefly discussed the appeals process.



Gettle praised the jury, saying its verdict should help the victim. "This was one of the worst types of cases you could have to listen to," the prosecutor said.