Child Killer Shawn Milne Arrested On Megan's Law Violation

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Shawn Milne is back in jail.

Milne, 46, who was released from state prison in November after serving a 30-sentence for the rape and murder of 13-year-old Barbara Renee Harrison in 1985, was arrested Wednesday on a Megan's Law violation, Toms River police said Thursday.

He is being held at the Ocean County Jail, Toms River, in lieu of $25,000 bail on two counts of failure to register.

Milne was arrested at 8 p.m. Wednesday at his Fischer Boulevard home after an investigation found he was living in Toms River and did not register the address with the police department, as state law requires, said Ralph Stocco, spokesman for the Toms River Police Department.

Registrants are required by New Jersey state law to either register annually or every 90 days with the police department of the municipality in which they reside, Stocco said. Milne also did not meet the requirements for notification of his employment status, which is also in violation of the conditions of his Megan’s Law status, Stocco said.

Detectives Jennifer Grob and Thomas Grosse signed the complaints Wednesday, and Milne was taken into custody without incident by Officer Travis Seaman, Stocco said.

Ordinarily, the maximum potential punishment on this third-degree crime is five years in prison with up to a $15,000 fine for each charge, Stocco said.

Toms River now remains as Milne’s current residential municipality, he said. The Fischer Boulevard home where he was arrested is the same home where Milne lived in 1985, when he raped and murdered Barbara Harrison, who lived just a few doors away and was his classmate at Toms River Intermediate School East.

Her family still lives in the same home, just a few doors away.

Milne attacked Barbara Harrison on Nov. 12, 1985, as she came home from a nearby candy store on Fischer Boulevard in the East Dover section, where she had gone to buy some candy and nuts.

He beat her with a board studded with nails, then raped her so violently she had a vaginal hemorrhage. He raped her anally. He struck her so hard one of her kidneys was lacerated. Then he threw her into the nearby Goose Creek, where she drowned.

The day after Barbara was murdered, police spotted drag marks and other items near the crime scene and tracked the marks to the Milne family’s backyard. There they found a pair of girls panties and a blanket. They also found a tool box with Milne‘s name on it with Barbara’s pants, shoes and socks, according to state appellate court records.

Milne was tried as an adult and convicted in 1987 of the murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison by Superior Court Judge William H. Huber, who added another 20 years for the aggravated sexual assault, but imposed no minimum of time to be served before Milne could be released, according to a Patch article from November 2015, when Milne was released from prison.

Milne was released in November after serving his full 30-year prison sentence but is required to notify police of his address as a sex offender under Megan's Law, which came into being in 1994, and affects Milne because he was still incarcerated at the time the law was passed.

At the time of his release, Milne reportedly was planning to stay with relatives living in Garfield.

Shawn Milne photo via Ocean County Corrections Department