ROCHESTER, Minn. — A Stillwater man was charged with dragging, drugging and raping a mentally impaired woman on a sordid multi-day escapade. Harold David Short, 56, was jailed on charges of third-degree and fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct and using drugs to facilitate a crime. The criminal complaint, drawn partly from recollections of the woman, alleges that the deeds were in December and included this sequence:
> Short picked up the woman at an adult care group home in Burnsville.
> Short drove the woman 20 miles to St. Paul, then 20 miles to Stillwater, then 90 miles to two addresses in southwest Rochester
> At one Rochester address the woman was forcibly injected with methamphetamine and forced into sex, then to a fast-food restaurant.
> Then 60 miles to Alma, Wisconsin, where they spent the night at a cabin.
> The woman was dropped off the next morning back in Rochester at the Southeast Regional Crisis Center.
The woman told investigators Short never allow her to leave. Because of mental impairment, the woman has a court-appointed guardian. She is considered a vulnerable adult.
Short’s profile
Short has a transient history that includes addresses in Winona and the Hidden Valley trailer court in Minneoita City. This was from 1997 to 2003. He has held licenses as a pilot and an engineer. Other addresses in his past: Austin, Circle Pines, Duluth, Rochester, Rollingstone, Rush City, Stewartville, Stillwater, and Wabasha, all in Minnesota; and Alma and Hudson, in Wisconsin. He has spent time in prison for drugs,